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We get some great questions and comments from the readers of our blogs, and this post takes its title from Brent, who on May 30 wrote:

“ The Roadster’s battery is arguably the most coddled automotive battery in history. It has its own climate control system, several monitoring computers, and perhaps some other mojo 'they' are not telling us. ”

The battery pack gets a lift

The Tesla Roadster’s battery is extraordinary and in some respects is our company's “secret sauce.” We call it the Energy Storage System (ESS). It is comprised of 6,831 individual lithium ion cells, each similar to the 6 to 12 cells (made by top-tier 18650 cell providers) found in many standard laptop computers. The cells, in turn, are housed in 11 modules. The ESS weighs about 900 pounds and contains about 53 kilowatt-hours of energy.

Our ESS contains multiple overlapping safety systems – some active and some passive. Each module has its own microprocessor circuitry that monitors a wide range of conditions as well as actively balancing the cell voltage to help mitigate the danger of overcharging (and potential damage from over-discharge). There are sensors inside the ESS that sniff for smoke, check for the existence of water immersions (if the car were driven into a lake, for example), and continually monitor the pack to ensure that it is thermally stable. Each cell is independently fused, not once, but twice. And the pack has been designed to passively contain any single cell entering thermal runaway (e.g. start burning) without propagating further. (For more information on the Tesla Roadster's ESS, see our blog and white paper on the subject.)

Collectively all these features (plus some others) give us confidence that the ESS is among the safest Li-ion battery packs made. In this post, I’ll address some of the regulatory work and support testing that we have done to validate the safety of the ESS. Given the size of our Li-ion pack, our volume projections, and the automotive future that Tesla Motors represents, we are getting attention from regulators (and not just in the United States).

To begin with, let’s talk about some of the process steps in bringing a new large Li-ion battery to market. Almost anybody can start a company and assemble batteries. However, depending on the volumes and chemistry involved, you can’t sell and ship them to the general public or untrained users without going through a whole battery (get the pun? :)) of tests to demonstrate safety.

The exact regulations may vary by country, but there has been a major effort via the United Nations (UN) to harmonize (e.g. propose and standardize) the regulations that govern safety and commerce for a variety of “dangerous goods” that may present a risk in transportation. These efforts include harmonization of transportation regulations for such things as Li-ion batteries, pesticides, radioactive materials, explosives, compressed gases, and flammable materials like paints. The governing regulations are based on the UN Recommendations on the Safe Transport of Dangerous Goods Model Regulations, and related UN Manual Tests and Criteria. The regulations vary by mode of transportation when these items are shipped (e.g. ocean vessel, rail, truck, aircraft).

Ouch!

In the regulatory world of Li-ion batteries, it turns out that there are two mutually exclusive categories that are treated very differently:

Prototypes: Packs made with electrically interconnected cells that have not completed a rigorous set of UN-defined safety tests.

Production: Packs made with electrically interconnected cells that have passed the UN-defined safety tests.

Basically, when you have to ship a “prototype” Li-ion battery there is a very strict set of regulations and conditions that govern its packaging, shipping and testing. For Tesla Motors, this involved the creation of a super robust crate that required its own testing and certification program. The adjacent picture (right) shows the candidate crate mid-fall during its certification testing.

Approved crate for prototype ESS

In addition, the Tesla Motors ESS is so large and heavy that we had to secure approval from Thailand’s transport authority to ship the “prototype” ESS from Thailand, where the battery packs are made. We also secured similar approvals from government transportation regulators in the U.K. (where the Tesla Roadster is assembled) and the U.S. (where we do R&D and most of the testing work). A picture is adjacent (left) of the fully tested and approved crate for our "prototype" ESS.

At this point in our story, Tesla Motors was able to ship prototype packs all over for our vehicle development and battery testing purposes. But we still had the small problem of needing to pass the required UN tests so that we could actually deliver cars to our customers. These tests weren’t originally drafted for packs as large as our ESS. As a result they are stricter than one would normally expect. Yet these are the rules and for the standard test protocol numerous test articles are required to sequentially pass the following tests:

Vibe testing

Altitude simulation: simulating air transport.

Thermal cycling: assessing cell and battery seal integrity.

Vibration: simulating vibration during transport.

Shock: simulating possible impacts during transport.

External short circuit: simulating an external short circuit.

Overcharge: evaluating ability of a rechargeable battery to withstand overcharging.

We have spent more than three years perfecting our design with innumerable trips to testing labs along the way to test design iterations. We only use cells that have passed both UN and UL 1642 testing criteria as well as our own specifications. Some of our tests are done at the cell level and some at the module level. And, of course, we test all sorts of other things using the full ESS pack. The picture at right shows an ESS on the vibe table – 38 hours of a particular vibration profile simulates 100,000 miles of driving.

Along the way we have also consulted with a wide range of experts, and we’ve also worked very closely with the U.S. authorities who regulate Dangerous Goods at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). And now, a drum roll please...

It is with great satisfaction that we can now state that we meet the requirements for a “production” Li-ion battery! This is the largest Li-ion battery that we are aware of that has met this milestone. And much more importantly, this represents a significant milestone toward our being able to ship Tesla Roadsters to customers.

Additionally, Tesla Motors has recently received permission to fly the production ESS and cars containing it on cargo aircraft. This has been a huge effort by Tesla Motors and has involved an additional level of scrutiny by the DOT. Shall we say that the Tesla ESS has passed this safety review with “flying” colors? :)

So what do you think? Is this the most coddled battery in automotive history?

I guess that if TES can supply large "production" batteries they should be ahead of the game!

For all you who kept saying "where is the new innovation" shame on you!

Brandon

9:26am | Aug 8, 2007

Coddled indeed. Congratulations on the approvals. I'm sure this was a huge expense for Tesla Motors. Will all of these tests have to be revisited if the White Star uses a different battery arrangement? Can analysis tools be used to validate the design or do the regulatory agencies require real world testing?

Richard C

10:36am | Aug 8, 2007

This sounds like a milestone not only towards Tesla's goal of shipping cars this year, but for Tesla Energy Group's mission to supply these battery packs to other interested companies. Great job!

TEG2

10:57am | Aug 8, 2007

Toyota recently back-pedaled on previously announced plans to do Li-ion based Prius batteries including possible Li-Ion PHEV models.

They stated that safety concerns have them retreating back to NiMH for the time being.
(Which puts them in the unfortunate situation of needing to stay in line with agreements related to Cobasys ownership of NiMH technology)

It seems little Telsa is showing big Toyota how they could have solved the Li-ion in an auto puzzle.
Good show on that.

Now we also have companies like A123systems and Altairnnano shipping Li-ion batteries that they claim are more inherently safe so they don't need all these extreme safety systems to keep them happy. It will be interesting to see if the A123/Altair based PHEVs and BEVs are able to meet all the regulatory hurdles and stay competitive with the system that Tesla has built.

Well I don't know about "coddled," but the battery did go through quite a bit of PUN-ishing work! Congrats!

Lsaac Ladson

11:26am | Aug 8, 2007

Wondered why I hadn't read much new on your blog lately; you guys were waiting to release this information properly timed to the U.N. announcement and that's fine and I congratulate you for the achievement.

Now, please know there are a lot of us just straining to hear how the whitestar project is proceeding. Your company is at the forefront of the hopes we have of extending the life of our planet so every Tesla achievement is a giant step in that direction.

Excellent news. I am wondering, will Tesla's ESS become a bigger money maker for the company than the cars themselves? What other applications might it fill?

TEG2

2:17pm | Aug 8, 2007

Reports of "Blue Star" (Model 3) having a possible ICE are disconcerting.

Tesla seems to be growing and heading in different directions now.

david moxness

2:45pm | Aug 8, 2007

That is very exciting news. I wonder if the first lunar lander had to jump through as many hoops before it was approved. I hope that is the last of the major hurdles for the car besides working out the "bugs".

Robert

4:03pm | Aug 8, 2007

I think the possible ICE in the Model 3 car is a misunderstanding. Could Tesla reply to this blog and clarify for the record please????

YP

4:58pm | Aug 8, 2007

Like TEG2, I was really disappointed to read that the Blue Star may have on-board ICE generator.
I hope to read some comments from Tesla on this issue.

Joseph

5:31pm | Aug 8, 2007

Congratulations!

The battery pack has been approved!!! So for anyone who is concerned about the battery pack I can just tell them that it is UN approved!

And yes, of course this battery pack is coddled. What kind of battery pack has its own cooling/heating/monitoring systems/sensors???

A question that maybe somebody can answer for me: When you divide the max. power among all 6,831 battery cell in the roadster, you get each cell producing about 30 watts. Is this alot of power to produce for one individual cell?

Ryan Lamansky / Kardax

5:34pm | Aug 8, 2007

TEG2: I'm in agreement that the idea of a Tesla with an ICE inside is a little depressing. I'd rather see Tesla delay BlueStar until they can make it work as a pure battery-electric vehicle. Maybe release a truck or something in the gap :)

Back to the subject at hand... I imagine the battery pack was one of the toughest regulatory hurdles, with all the new technology contained within. Passing it (and even being air-transport certified!) is a major milestone ;)

stan

5:43pm | Aug 8, 2007

Congratulations! Now maybe you can begin work on a next generation pack with larger format cells which will require fewer interconects. Or do you plan to continue with the small cells until larger cells are redily available by suppliers to other EV makers?

Mark Tomlinson

6:33pm | Aug 8, 2007

So it's safe to assume that none of the tests included holding it to your tongue to see if it was still charged?

There's been a lot of chatter in the blogs about exciting new battery developments. And there's always a comment along the lines of, "You guys are crazy for not using the Godzilawatt dilithuim cells!" Uh, huh. If it takes this much energy (not another pun!) to put commercialized batteries in a car, imagine the DOT, UN, and EPA hurdles to use something that hasn't even come to market yet. It really puts the existence of the Tesla Energy Group in perspective for me.

Mark Tomlinson

6:35pm | Aug 8, 2007

P.S. Erik, I bet you've got a real love-hate relationship with your lawyers right about now!

Tim Johnson

6:53pm | Aug 8, 2007

I noticed that the battery was de-rated by 5%. I thought I'd read it differently in the whitepaper, but I checked and that said the same 53 KWh. At least you guys are consistent, but it seems slipping that into the whitepaper without annotating the change to a paper stated as written in 2006 is a bit duplicitous. Not that big of a deal, but to me that sort of behavior is rather irksome.

Gregg Schultz

10:24pm | Aug 8, 2007

You know, it seems to me that one of the biggest concerns about electric cars is the safety of the battery in case of an accident. I was having a conversation with a very right-wing friend of mine the other day about electric cars. Se said "If you get into an accident, and that puppy shorts to ground: you're a dead man". But it seems to me that Tesla has made it's battery pack so safe that the Roadster's fuel system probably exceeds the safety of an ICE vehicle's gas tank; which is, after all, filled with explosive fluid.

I'm quite impressed with the number of safety precautions taken to make the Roadster's Energy Storage System safe. According to the White Papers: each of the 6831 cells has a robust steel casing, two fuses and devices that react to short circuits and excessive internal pressure, there are eleven main fuses for each bunch of 621 cells, a liquid cooled temperature-regulating system, and computer systems that monitor the pack's temperature, voltage, current, tilt (in case of rollover), and impulse (essentially "sensing" a car crash). Quite a mouthful :) One can't exactly put this many precautions to a gas tank.

But to answer the last question: no, I don't think the battery pack is "coddled". Instead, I think it's more prepared than a boy scout!

Raymond Michiels

11:53pm | Aug 8, 2007

Wonderful! Great! So now you can even *fly* the Tesla I so desperately want to order to the Netherlands. I guess now I just have to wait for approval to fly in a Tesla servicing station. :-)

Can we please try to stop journalists from saying that the roadster will "outrun" a Ferrari. Which Ferrari? Just because it can do 0-60 faster than some Ferraris doesn't mean it will "outrun" them in any sense. If you use all the performance, and you'll need to, the Ferrari will still have petrol (gasoline) left long after the battery has gone flat....and you still have to get home! The Roadster is a great car but lets not pretend it's the answer to all motoring needs. This sort of thing just opens us up to easy critcisism from anybody that understands cars.

Andrew Kelsey

2:49am | Aug 9, 2007

Sorry about the typo....criticism!

Malcolm Wilson

7:08am | Aug 9, 2007

# TEG2 wrote
# Reports of “Blue Star” (Model 3) having a possible ICE are disconcerting.
# Tesla seems to be growing and heading in different directions now.

I'm sure they're as unhappy about this projection as we all are.

Bluestar MAY need a small ICE generator on board to give reasonable range for $30,000. But nothing is set in stone. This may not happen, but equally, it may.

However, it is MUCH more important that Tesla continues to maintain it's reputation for honesty in the EV marketplace. Its cautious predictions are in striking contrast to those of other companies:-

Altairnano, A123 Systems and the rest, are battery R&D companies. They have no experience of developing a production EV to compete with ICEs on price and performance.

Phoenix Motorcars make big claims, but they prefer selling to fleets because that’s where the math works out. The State of California provides some pretty massive incentives for fleet EVs...enough to make it possible to sell a vehicle with $75,000 worth of bat­teries for $45,000!
Source: http://www.greencar.com/index.cfm?content=phoenix_electrified

Oh and like the Tesla ESS, the Phoenix batteries still weigh 900lbs but only give about 100 miles of range!

Likewise ZAP. Can they move away from their low-volume, three-wheeled punishment car background? Getting Lotus to design the ZAP-X was a smart move, but with Altairnano also providing the (heavy) batteries can they deliver on their 155 mph 350 mile range for more than a handful of (expensive) vehicles?. I'm particularly concerned that at present, ZAP do not seem to be focussing their entire efforts on car production: http://www.zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=5080
Is the ZAP-X important or isn't it?

It is interesting that the one company which has the greatest real-world experience of bringing a 130 mph, 200+ mile range EV to market, is reigning back on the predictions. It would be very easy for Tesla to ride the media frenzy surrounding the Roadster with "ZAP-like" predictions for Whitestar and Bluestar. They don't.

I think it is wise to consider an ICE generator for the BlueStar. However, I think that it should be removable. 10kw ICE generators are available for under 300lbs, which is conceivably light enough to put in the trunk when you need the range. This allows for greater battery range and maneuverability when you don't have the generator in there. I personally think it would be great to have the ability to attach a generator to the WhiteStar trunk for long trips. Then again, how many trips would you have to make to exceed a rental car for road trips? Let's see, 3 trips a year at one week each, $100/day rental car = $2000, add 10 misc long-distance days = $3000. So a generator would pay for itself in less than two years. Not sure it's worth it, especially for such a weak generator. We'll see how things change by 2011 after the WhiteStar is released and Tesla starts designing the BlueStar. Does every battery configuration has to go through this rigorous testing, or is it less severe once the design has been demonstrated to fulfill all the requirements?

Malcolm Wilson

10:52am | Aug 9, 2007

"Americans see the development of 100 mile-per-gallon cars as one of the most powerful ideas for combating global warming and reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil, according to survey results released today."

# Tim Johnson wrote on August 8th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
## I noticed that the battery was de-rated by 5%.
## I thought I’d read it differently in the whitepaper, but I checked and that said the same 53 KWh.
## At least you guys are consistent, but it seems slipping that into the whitepaper without annotating the change
## to a paper stated as written in 2006 is a bit duplicitous. Not that big of a deal, but to me that sort of behavior is rather irksome.

Yes, I too had noticed that the whitepaper document had been morphing over time without the date being updated.

# Malcolm Wilson wrote on August 9th, 2007 at 7:08 am
## However, it is MUCH more important that Tesla continues to maintain it’s reputation for honesty in the EV marketplace.

Yes, selective release of accurate information during the development process is very exciting to those watching the progress of this company. We all know that things change, and appreciate the honesty when someone like Martin steps forward to admit that specific targets couldn't be met. Trying to quietly change information without saying that the old information was inaccurate breeds mistrust. Many people are very suspicious of Zap's claims about the Zap-X, but we want to hold onto the idea that Tesla is different and only says what they know to be true. Please fight hype with truth, and avoid the urge to get pulled into a "hype war". As Tesla grows and more projects are in flux with more people talking to the press it will be harder and harder to be so careful about what is said. At some point it will be tempting to throw hands in the air and say "we can't respond to all the little inaccuracies that leaked out", but those watching the company from the outside do appreciate it when Tesla takes the time to set the record straight.

For those that missed it, this is the article that started the "Tesla may use a gasoline engine" chatter:http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_31/b4044419.htm
"...If necessary, the company would be willing to use a small gas engine to boost Blue Star's range and broaden its appeal...."
The quote isn't attributed to anyone although it is in a paragaph where they talk about Martin's (and later Elon's) thoughts on the market for Prius competition.

Brent

1:44pm | Aug 9, 2007

#TEG2 wrote on August 8th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
#Reports of “Blue Star” (Model 3) having a possible ICE are disconcerting.

Was it just the Business Week article that added that idea? Or has it been published elsewhere?

I seem to remember Martin telling Nightline* in May that his "goal is ultimately to get people to stop burning gasoline in their cars." Business and engineering realities force a change, but Bluestar is so far off that it's hard to know how it'll go. Maybe we'll have the fabled mega-capacitor by then!

According to yesterday's CNN Money article**, Whitestar's release has probably been pushed at least into 2010 (from earlier rumors of a 2009 release): "'We are in the very early stages of it,' said Eberhard, noting that he 'would not place any bets' on a target of a 2010 model year."

I find this news somewhat disappointing personally, as I thought to put off another car purchase for two years in hopes of replacing it with a Whitestar. But, as they say in open source software -- it'll be ready when it's ready.

I keep seeing people complaining that the blogs are not updated often enough. Give these folks a break!

* They are launching the first production, high performance electric sports car. That's an enormous amount of work.
* They are also opening up service centers around the country. Even more work.
* They are also designing the next car, the Whitestar project.
* Also working on building an assembly plant for the Whitestar.
* They are busy hiring people to help get all this work done. This involves weeding out lots of very good candidates to find the truly exceptional, and it's very time consuming

On top of all that, it's summertime. I've worked at startups before, and It's tough. If they are smart, they are squeezing in a few precious days off to maintain sanity.

The blogs are nice, but they have so many higher priority tasks, Overall, I think they are doing a great job with the blogs.

Dale

2:46pm | Aug 9, 2007

I'd rather see a Blue Star or White Star with the unlimited range provided with a small ICE-powered generator because batteries will not provide sufficient range on their own in my lifetime. It would be nice if the ICE generator is flex-fueled, but not a necessity. Give me the option of either BEV only or EV Serial Hybrid if you must placate the EV purist, but don't let them talk you out of the serial hybrid. I am not going to pay $30,000 for an EV vehicle that only takes me 100 or so miles a day, forcing me to buy a second $20,000 to $30,000 vehicle for longer trips (I'm not going to rent for long trips because they come too often and renting will end up costing more than buying). Give me the serial hybrid that can go reasonable distances on EV only and unlimited distances in hybrid mode at 100 mpg or more. Make it so I can select EV only or hybrid modes (normal hybrid mode that starts the generator only as needed, and a performance hybrid mode that runs the generator continuously for extra power when required/desired).

Peter J Hedge

4:04pm | Aug 9, 2007

Thanks TEG2 for linking us to the "evidence" that the Blue Star's may have an ICE.

I too will be more than a little disappointed if Tesla goes this route as they have been so adamant in their statements that their vehicles will be ICE free. i.e. 100% EV's.

But Blue Star is still a long way off and improvements in battery technology/costs are happening all the time. My bet (hope) is that the other two models will so successful that the ICE idea just won't happen.

However, it would be reassuring to hear from the "Horse's mouth" just what the intention is at this stage.

Peter J Hedge (Victoria, BC)

TEG2

4:48pm | Aug 9, 2007

Speaking of controlling online history...

Maybe I am just paranoid but I noticed all of the following things recently:
#1: Attempts to use archive.org to view recent, but old versions of teslamotors.com just redirect back to the latest version of teslamotors.com
#2: My attempts to search the Google cache for recent blog history seem to be failing for me now
#3: teslamotorsclub.com went offline due to a "hacker defacement".
(hopefully these are just random coincidences)

On the other hand, I don't think anything I ever posted to these blogs has been censored.

James Anderson Merritt

6:28pm | Aug 9, 2007

TEG2 urges Tesla to refrain from a "hype war" with the likes of ZAP. But what about GM?

"TRAVERSE CITY, Mich.—General Motors Corp. has signed an agreement with a battery maker that could propel it ahead of Toyota Motor Corp. in the race to bring plug-in hybrid and electric cars to market, a top company official said Thursday.

"A123 Systems Inc., based in Watertown, Mass., already produces millions of nanophosphate lithium-ion batteries for use in cordless power tools, and it plans to apply the technology to automobiles.

"GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said the deal, coupled with a published report that Toyota Motor Corp. would delay launches of lithium-ion battery powered hybrids for up to two years, could give GM the lead in bringing the new clean technology to market. "

Wow, does this ever sound like the old Silicon Valley vaporware claims of yore, or even the ZAP-X claims of today! But when GM talks, people listen, and the pressure is now on folks like Tesla to either match the big guy, hype for hype, OR actually demonstrate and soon ship a product that is so compelling as to overcome GM's formidable "FUD factor." I note that the Pebble Beach Councours D'Elegance is coming around again. So which is it going to be for Tesla, I wonder?

CM

7:20pm | Aug 9, 2007

# TEG2 wrote
# Reports of “Blue Star” (Model 3) having a possible ICE are disconcerting.

I suspect that if they do it will be an option that some customers may want and others may not. It would be kinda neat if they could make it easily removable - a different sort of "convertable" - but the engineering would be really difficult, especially if you had the engine, cooling system, generator, and fuel tank in one heavy compact removable package. Other types of "range extenders" are also possible, including gas turbines, stirling engines, or fuel cells.

# Malcolm Wilson wrote,, GM A123 announcement
# Same problem as the cells from Altairnano, greater power but lower capacity & shorter range and pointless
# fast charge capability.
# Although they claim “Low cost” this will only happen if they can adapt nano chemistry for high volume
# production. No problem if they just muck about with expensive prototypes.

A123 is already in high volume production, making batteries for DeWalt to use in cordless power tools. That is a bit more demanding than laptop batteries. A123 is also starting to make larger format batteries, to be used in some electric motorcycles and scooters. I don't know what an automotive sized A123 battery pack would cost, but it will certainly be less than the AltairNano - iron phosphate costs much less than lithium titanate spinel ceramic.

# Why won’t GM announce that it will compete for the Automotive X-Prize?

Maybe they feel that they'd look like a big bully picking on the "little guys" if they won, and it would be much too embarassing if they lost to some little start-up. So far, no major auto company has entered, though there is still a couple of months before the deadline. If another major auto maker does enter, then GM and some others will probably enter, too. Of course, GM may be afraid of Honda and Toyota entering the contest, and are really terrified of Tesla!

Eric

8:13pm | Aug 9, 2007

# TEG2 wrote
# Reports of “Blue Star” (Model 3) having a possible ICE are disconcerting.

I realize that most believe that an all-electric EV is the best option given that it completely removes dependence on gasoline. However, I've previously suggested and still standby the fact that a car like the Blue Star will have a greater net benefit to the environment and the consumer if a such a serial hybrid configuration is at least made available.

Looking at one's carbon footprint as a result of consumption, it is certainly more beneficial to own one vehicle that can do everything rather than own two. Furthermore, if such an ICE generator could run on E-85, the equivalent MPGG would be a small fraction of what it is today. Finally, pairing a smaller battery with an ICE generator would not only make the car more practical to a larger consumer base, it would make it more affordable.

I love the idea of an all-electric vehicle that could meet all my needs, but balance is the key. I think having such an extender as an available option for the car would be the best of both worlds: All electric for those who don't need anything more, and the range extending capabilities for those who do.

If the ultimate goal here is to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, the more people that find the car practical and affordable, the better.

# Brent wrote on August 9th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
## I seem to remember Martin telling Nightline in May that his “goal is ultimately to get people to stop burning gasoline in their cars.”

Yeah, and in an old blog entry ( http://www.teslamotors.com/blog2/?p=27 ) he said:
"...Tesla Motors will remain focused on building the best electric cars for the foreseeable future. With each passing year, our driving range will get longer and the argument for plug-in hybrids will get weaker. To hell with gasoline..."

Malcolm Wilson

3:03am | Aug 10, 2007

# James Anderson Merritt wrote
# But when GM talks, people listen.

# CM wrote on August 9th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
# A123 is already in high volume production,

Joe LoGrasso, the Engineering Manager for Hybrid Energy Storage Systems at A123 seemed to highlight that the E-Flex (i.e. the Volt) needs substantially higher power output than the parallel hybrids and much more energy density.

Can they achieve that AND still use the cheaper air-cooling system they have devised for their other hybrid battery designs? Or will the higher output (i.e. unique engineering solutions) required by the Volt disqualify it from GM's manufacturing line-up for a good while yet?

Since the demise of the EV1, the Volt represents the most serious attempt by GM to return to electric motoring (although the cars don't compare). But as can be gleaned from the above article, the Volt presents some unique engineering challenges over and above GM's other HEVs and PHEVs,

In the current manufacturing climate, and where it would seem that legislation may only force auto makers to achieve a miserable 35 mpg by 2020, General Motors and, to be fair, other auto makers as well, only need to ANNOUNCE that they are being innovative when it comes to engineering larger automotive battery systems. I fully expect GM to make some sexy Volt prototypes and to announce serious intentions, simply because, "When GM talks, people delay purchasing". At present, the Volt has a greater PR value and GM knows how to schedule the announcements and the prototypes and the customer trials across years and years if it needs to.

Which is why I wish Big Auto (and GM in particular - because of the EV1) would suck it up and enter the Auto X-prize. They could be quite up-front that this is a new direction and an engineering learning curve for them, but that they are seriously committed to the 100mpg target. Something that all US auto makers should aspire to.

At some point in the next 50 years, Big Auto is going to have to challenge the influence of Big Oil anyway. Might as well try to get the most PR out of it.

Tesla Motors could have simply built the vehicles in the United States. Then it would have little need for all of the work getting it qualified for import.

By the way, all of the work is because of the United States' and the United Kingdom's requirements, not the United Nations. The United Nations has no authority to enforce such requirements and can only suggest them. The United States and United Kingdom apparently choose to adopt them.

Mark Tomlinson

3:22pm | Aug 10, 2007

Eric wrote:
"I realize that most believe that an all-electric EV is the best option given that it completely removes dependence on gasoline. However, I’ve previously suggested and still standby the fact that a car like the Blue Star will have a greater net benefit to the environment and the consumer if a such a serial hybrid configuration is at least made available."

Agreed. The way I see it, in the $30,000 market, people are more interested in a car than a statement. If it takes a small ICE to make the vehicle attractive to a greater audience, then the net environmental gain is greater than selling a few pure EVs. It may be a necessary stepping stone to acceptance of pure EVs.

Joseph

5:08pm | Aug 10, 2007

I have two things to say.

One, what's the big deal that Tesla Motors has put slight changes in their White Papers? I mean what are they gonna do? Make a big announcement about a reduction of 3kwh from their battery pack? If we want truth and accuracy from Tesla Motors, then we should all be happy that they have reported the changes in the battery pack.

And Two, having a range extender in the Blue Star is almost inevitable. Electric cars will need to have lots of range in order to suceed. And as of today, a high range and a low price, don't mix. (More range=more batteries=more cost)
With GM and Toyota as possible competitors they will have to offer their Blue Star with an ICE range extender to stay ahead of the game.

Tesla Motors! Listen to this though!!! Have your BlueStar ICE range extender only as an option so that all us EV reaks can enjoy being ICE free!!!!!

vfx

6:37pm | Aug 10, 2007

So the Blue Star might come with powerplant options.

Option 1- A 100 mile battery range with an Stirling (or other) generator motor that runs on various fuels to extend range.
Option 2 -A 350 mile (all battery) range. This one might be cheaper as well since the R & D is already done, there is only one motor and the safety certification issues are 1/2.

vfx

6:45pm | Aug 10, 2007

As far as Gm not wanting to compete with the "little guys", I don't buy it.

The point is to further the progress of the technology we don't care where it comes from.

TEG2

11:05pm | Aug 10, 2007

# Joseph wrote on August 10th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
## what’s the big deal that Tesla Motors has put slight changes in their White Papers?
Typically you change the date on a document when you make changes. Or archive the old version and make a new version.
Was it an honest oversight or "lets pretend we never said that"... I dunno.

## With GM and Toyota as possible competitors they will have to offer their Blue Star with an ICE range extender to stay ahead of the game.
I hope Tesla leads the industry showing that they can win without major compromise.
Following GM & Toyota doesn't seem like the way to go. Those big guys have way more economy of scale. Tesla needs to be different and more innovative to win.

----

Editor's Answer : Take a look at the bottom of the page of the Battery White Paper - the date is updated every time the paper is updated. The last update is 07-07-07.

Malcolm Wilson

1:00am | Aug 11, 2007

# Richard wrote
# Tesla Motors could have simply built the vehicles in the United States.
# Then it would have little need for all of the work getting it qualified for import.

Ah, but even if it did, there are other reasons why Tesla needs the ESS to be certified as legal air freight:-

In the UK we're paying around $9 per gallon of gas aside from congestion charges in London recently raised to $50 per day for larger engined cars. The Roadster actually makes economic sense for rich Brits that live and work around London and like performance cars. Thanks to the success of the city's financial district there are plenty of them.

Short (I minute) clip of the BBC reporter Dan Simmons just after his ride in the Tesla. Very enthusiastic!

In the BBC programe above there is a screen shot of the onboard computer that gives estimated range left on remaining battery power. The shot shows 27% charge and an estimated range of 29 miles. I assume this is a true reflection of range achievable when driving enthusiastically. I'm sure Tesla were using all the performance to show off the car to the BBC. If this is accurate and if the car is the same as the customer cars, it implies a total range of 107 miles with enthusiastic driving. Pretty good in my opinion.

Andrew Kelsey

6:35am | Aug 11, 2007

Mr Moderator. I'm sorry if I've broken some unwritten rule about quoting facts gleaned from PR films of the Tesla but I really don't think censoring your fans is the way to go and in any case the film is out there. Do you really believe you can control the Internet? I won't put it on youtube but I bet somebody will. I love the Roadster and have been following its development through these blogs for some time. There has already been a lot of discussion about range which is usually seen as the achilles heel of any electric car. Various knowledgeable people have estimated what the car's range might be at any given speed. Any intelligent person, and I'm sure most of your potential customers with $98,000 to spend on a sports car will be intelligent, realises that the car's range will depend on how it is being driven. You go fast, you don't go so far......you go slow, you go much further. This isn't rocket science! I happened to notice the screen shot showing 27% battery left and 29 miles estimated range. It's an easy calculation to arrive at 107 miles range when thrashing the car for a TV film. This doesn't mean we don't believe the 220 mile range estimated for the car. Most driving takes place at lower speeds and I'm sure 220 miles or even more is possible even with occasional fast acceleration. Your openness in these blogs is one of the main differences between Tesla and other car companies...electric or otherwise. I realise this is a sensitive issue for you, especially just before you launch the car but these kinds of figures and calculations are going to be easily available once the car is on the market. I hope you will reconsider your decision to censor my posts. Meantime I will refrain from posting again but it would be nice if you could drop me an e-mail letting me know your thinking on this. Thank you.

----

Editor's Answer : I think you are confused Andrew :-) All comments are held for moderation and 99.9% are approved - the posting guidelines are here. Your comments are still there, as you can see. They were just waiting, along with all the others. This way we get no unfortunate spam. Oh, and I am not a Mr ;-)

DGP

8:33am | Aug 11, 2007

I'll wade in on the range extender.
1. Tesla provides recharging recepticle at the rear of the vehicle and hardpoints for a tow hitch, then washes their hands of all responsibilities.
2. Aftermarket provides a stylish trailer with 2 compartments, one for extra luggage [because you're now on a longer trip] and the second for a gas powered electrical generator, with suitable tie downs, venting, and a locking lid for security.
3. The owner provides a gas powered electrical generator and assumes all responsibilities.

You have now made a serial hybrid that can be returned to pure EV by unhitching a trailer and relieved Tesla of a lot of BS. Starting with a fully charged battery that would move the car for lets say 4hrs, how much farther would a Honda generator push the car?,if it ran continuously at the begining of the journey. BTW if you get stuck on the side of the road with no juice, this system will eventually free you.

Andrew Kelsey

12:11pm | Aug 11, 2007

Apologies Ms Moderator, but my 3 earlier comments are not 'still there' but have reappeared just as they mysteriously disappeared when I first posted the one about range. Call me paranoid but I have posted before and this has never happened. Anyway, I'm glad the comments are now acceptable and I hope whoever allowed the BBC to shoot the onboard computer still has a job!

TEG2

4:40pm | Aug 11, 2007

# Editor’s wrote:
## Take a look at the bottom of the page of the Battery White Paper - the date is updated every time the paper is updated. The last update is 07-07-07.

Thanks, editor. Yes, I can now see that most recent version of the document has a "last update" date at the bottom which shows that are tracking revisions.
It still says "August 16, 2006" front and center on the first page which is slightly misleading if you don't know about the smaller, revision note down on the bottom of the last page. I still think the update footnote should appear next to the original publish date, not buried down at the end.

I recall the first version said 50kWh, then it jumped up to 56kWh, then settled back down to 53kWh. So this isn't a major change, but rather just minor corrections as the product was being finalized.

Thanks again for putting so much technical information on the web for us to peruse.

Bill

7:32pm | Aug 11, 2007

It shouldn't surprise anyone that Tesla is looking at a serial hybrid (onboard ICE)

Remember, the ICE doesn't have to burn gasoline.

Compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered vehicles are very clean in terms of emissions, and CNG is very kind to the engine (longer life)

In Europe, "flex-fuel" often means petrol/CNG.

In some states (e.g. CA & NY), you can get a home refueling station installed.

A small CNG vehicle might get 150 miles on CNG alone, but using a battery pack and a CNG-fueled engine specifically tuned for efficiency would greatly extend that range.

I bet for most U.S. drivers it is easier to get CNG for their vehicle than E85!

TEG2

8:47pm | Aug 11, 2007

# Bill wrote on August 11th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
## It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Tesla is looking at a serial hybrid (onboard ICE)
## Remember, the ICE doesn’t have to burn gasoline.

Yes, I converted my old Rx7 to run on LPG (propane gas) which you can find all over to refill barbecues, RVs and trailers.
Certainly better than gasoline.

# DGP wrote on August 11th, 2007 at 8:33 am
## 1. Tesla provides recharging receptacle at the rear of the vehicle and hardpoints for a tow hitch, then washes their hands of all responsibilities.

I like that approach. Then you can add the trailer for the long road trip, but run on batteries only for the short commute.
Also, the trailer could just be more batteries if you refused to burn anything.

Ahmadi

10:24pm | Aug 11, 2007

Andrew Kelsey - it is possible that the prototype Tesla demonstrated for the BBC contained a smaller prototype battery (e.g. 30 KWh) and you will get the range of 107 miles. What makes you believe that the prototype had 53 KWh of battery capacity?

A123 says it is has shipped 10 million safe 26650 nLiFePO4 batteries (mostly to Black and Decker).

It is a pity that Tesla is wasting its time trying to liquid cool and heat the outmoded and unsafe and materially expensive LiCoO2 18650 battery.

A123 is now shipping nano-phosphate 32157 32 Wh high energy batteries (125) Wh/kg which is equivalent to Tesla's 129 Wh/kg battery pack. If Tesla had used these, it would reduce the quantity of batteries (and connections from 6400 to 1650).

Question is - how did Tesla allow GM a dinosaur auto maker bully to upstage Tesla and take the A123 bride's hand? Aren't you supposed to be nimble as a startup? LiFePo4 has been around for 10 years now, and the B&D product out for 2 years. In late 2005, John Goodenough had heard about the B&D rollout by A123.

Tesla should quickly convert over to lifepo or nlifepo, and allow for the serial hybridization as a customer option for the bluestar. I would prefer a SPHEV bluestar with 30 KWh lifepo and a 8 KWh removable generator over a 70 KWh lifepo BEV bluestar.

Ahmadi

11:03pm | Aug 11, 2007

Word in Taiwan is that LiFePO4 18650 cells are 1/3 the price of LiCoO2 cells (18650 format) in volume. Due to the safety issue, LiCoO2 cells do not come larger than 18650 (4/3 A-size) which are 7.5 Wh.

However, lifepo has been manufactured single cell cylinders as large as 800 Wh. Tesla would only need 66 of these monsters to get 53 KWh.

And then there is the cycle life. lifepo cycle life is 8000 vs. 500 - 1000 for LiCoO2.

Andrew Kelsey

3:54am | Aug 12, 2007

Ahmadi wrote on August 11th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Andrew Kelsey - it is possible that the prototype Tesla demonstrated for the BBC contained a smaller prototype battery (e.g. 30 KWh) and you will get the range of 107 miles. What makes you believe that the prototype had 53 KWh of battery capacity?

Well Ahmadi, putting it mildly, that is extremely unlikely. There would be no point in prototyping a vehicle with a non-representative battery. In fact it's far more likely that the prototype had the 56KWh pack, but I don't know for sure. Also the car was apparently performing up to Tesla's claims in terms of acceleration etc. Not likely to do that with a smaller battery. The truth is that the range of the car is very dependent on how you drive it. When you drive at near competition speeds on the road, as Tesla were doing to show off the car, of course the range will suffer. I think most owners would agree that it is perfectly reasonable that if you use all of the performance you will achieve a lower range. That's true of any car. There has already been a lot of speculation on this site about range at various speeds and everybody accepts the basic principle. If you use full acceleration all the time and drive at high speeds you are not going to achieve the maximum range. Most normal road driving, even in fast sports cars, is not like this. Usually traffic conditions and policing force you to drive at much lower speeds and only exercise the full acceleration occasionally. In these circumstances a range of 200+ miles is not impossible. In mixed driving you'll probably get mixed range, say from 150 miles to 180 miles. If you go balls out to race a Ferrari on an empty road you probably won't get more than 100 miles. None of this is unreasonable or unaceptable it just needs careful explaining to prospective buyers. I'm sure Tesla are informing actual owners of all the performance parameters that will apply.

Andrew Kelsey

4:06am | Aug 12, 2007

Ms Moderator or Editor, whoever deals with this stuff.

This is off-topic but what happened to the facility to view "most recent post first" / "most recent post last". That button seems to have disappeared. It was a really useful button given the length of some threads. Can we have it back?

----

Editor's Answer: I'll take a look ...

Andrew Kelsey

5:45am | Aug 12, 2007

Just to illustrate the point on range versus performance I believe the Bugatti Veyron only has enough fuel to last 12 minutes at its top speed of 253mph. Of course nobody is going to find a road long enough to put this to the test but it implies that the car only has a tank big enough for fifty miles at top speed. Petrol cars have their problems too.

Steve Casner

11:20am | Aug 12, 2007

Andrew Kelsey - When you submit a post to this blog, it will appear immediately in *your* browser where you submitted the post so you can see what you've written, but anyone viewing the blog from somewhere else, including you on the same computer with a new instance of the browser, will not see it until the moderator approves it. That is why you thought your post disappeared.

Ahmadi - No, the battery was not smaller. As Andrew said, if you drive "enthusiastically", with lots of fast accelerations, your range will be significantly reduced because it takes more energy to drive that way. The same is true in a gas car.

TEG2

11:55am | Aug 12, 2007

# Ahmadi wrote on August 11th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
## Andrew Kelsey - it is possible that the prototype Tesla demonstrated for the BBC contained a smaller prototype battery (e.g. 30 KWh)
## and you will get the range of 107 miles. What makes you believe that the prototype had 53 KWh of battery capacity?

As far as I know they all have the same 50kWh+ pack.
Tesla has never indicated that some of the prototypes have different battery capacities.

Rishi Mukhopadhyay

12:09pm | Aug 12, 2007

I was wondering if there are any plans by Tesla to sell this battery pack directly to enthusiasts/tinkerers converting their old cars to electric. The battery pack does seem to be the biggest problem home EV-converters face.

Why would Tesla do this??? They know that Tesla Motors equates with Martin! Martin is a great character for this company. He's Steve Jobs but for electric cars!!!!

Why?!?

Bruce

9:23pm | Aug 12, 2007

Joseph,

Please note that Apple kicked Steve Jobs out once too! However, I agree with you and hope this is not the end of Tesla! I hope the board knows what they are doing. I am worried now. Maybe, like Apple, Tesla will one day bring Martin back.

# Ahmadi wrote
# A123 says it is has shipped 10 million safe 26650 nLiFePO4 batteries (mostly to Black and Decker).
# It is a pity that Tesla is wasting its time trying to liquid cool and heat the outmoded
# and unsafe and materially expensive LiCoO2 18650 battery.

Even more of a pity then that GM have announced that they need to liquid cool the more modern A123's as well. AND for a smaller 40 mile range battery pack as well:-

Quote: "He agreed that working battery pack prototypes will be coming from both battery teams this fall. Interestingly, it is expected that different test versions of the Volt will be built, each with different battery packs from the two manufacturing teams. He also told me that a decision has been made to use liquid cooling (and not air) systems for the packs."

Andrew Kelsey

3:57am | Aug 13, 2007

Thanks for that explanation Steve Casner. I now understand what happened to my posts. I still find it a little bit strange that I have never noticed it happen to any other posts of mine. Usually I put them up and they seem to stay put, but I have no technical understanding of this and I therefore apologise to the Editor or Moderator for suggesting that they were censoring me unfairly.

Brian

6:06am | Aug 13, 2007

Speculating from the press release, specifically that Martin is remaining at Tesla as the president of Technology and still in charge of the Roadster and "core technologies", it sounds like Martin is allowing someone else to manage the "boring" bits of manufacturing, logistics and regulations, while he focuses on creating exciting new technologies. Sometimes it is better to be the prince than the king.

TEG2

9:05am | Aug 13, 2007

# Brian wrote on August 13th, 2007 at 6:06 am
## Speculating from the press release, specifically that Martin is remaining at Tesla as the president of Technology and still in charge of the Roadster
## and “core technologies”, it sounds like Martin is allowing someone else to manage the “boring” bits of manufacturing,
## logistics and regulations, while he focuses on creating exciting new technologies. Sometimes it is better to be the prince than the king.

That would be great if true, but this article suggests that CEOs typically get to do the planning, while a president is expected to handle the more mundane day to day operations:http://ask.yahoo.com/20050830.html
Hopefully Martin isn't so bogged down supervising roadster production that he can't help plan future strategy.

Jeanette Weix

9:16am | Aug 13, 2007

Besides congradulating you on your great invention I have to acknowledge your wonderful site. But where do I find the cost of the replacement battery that will be needed approximately every 100,000 miles?

Andrew Kelsey

9:24am | Aug 13, 2007

Martin's e-mail to roadster buyers that I found on Jalopnik today gives an interesting insight into the current state of play.

My two cents is that this isn't such a bad thing. Let the guy deal with the technical stuff he enjoys and leave building a big car company to somebody else. I just hope they find somebody suitable soon as Michael Marks is only 'interim CEO'.

Andrew Kelsey

9:28am | Aug 13, 2007

Jeanette Weix wrote on August 13th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Besides congradulating you on your great invention I have to acknowledge your wonderful site. But where do I find the cost of the replacement battery that will be needed approximately every 100,000 miles?

Last I heard it's around $20,000 at the moment but everybody expects that to fall a long way over the life of the battery pack. Got a crystal ball?

Peter J Hedge

9:30am | Aug 13, 2007

I find it interesting that soon after the press report of Tesla possibly going "hybrid' with one of their models, the CEO (who emphatically stated his "anti-gasoline" standing) has been "re-assigned".

Of course it's easy for me (and others) to speculate but I do have to wonder if there is any connection.

In any event, from what I know,Martin has done a great job and I wish him well in his new postion.

It doesn't actually sound like a bad thing. Martin is staying on, as head of technology, which is probably a better place for him to be anyway. And they're replacing him with a seasoned CEO who sounds like he knows what he's doing. That's just the nature of business, people move around, change job title/responsibilities. Remember too that Bill Gates hasn't been CEO at MS for a while but he's still been working there.

Tod G. Collins

12:15pm | Aug 13, 2007

Sounds to me like Tesla Motors is getting serious about mixing it with the Big Boys. Reminiscent of Bill Ford Jr.'s moving aside in favor of an airplane guy, Alan Mullally, with impressive achievements in Boeing production. The more resources Tesla can add to their already impressive talent pool, the greater the chance of future successes.
Hopefully, once the Roadster production is underway, Martin can devote more time to the Whitestar program and give us all some details about this next generation. To me this is encouraging news.
Tod G. Collins, Orcas Island

James Anderson Merritt

5:42pm | Aug 13, 2007

Just a side note: The only ZENN dealer (as far as I know) in Santa Cruz CA is closing down:

The article doesn't mention the ZENN, but this was where I first saw it for sale a few weeks back.

I guess if I want a test drive, I had better get in there before Labor Day.

T.J.

6:06pm | Aug 13, 2007

Michael Marks, who replaced Martin as interium CEO , still works for the so-called "establishment private equity firm" of Kohlberg, Kravis & Roberts (according to "Green Wombat website)-this firm worked with Drexell, Burnham Lambert during the Michael Milkin days. It will be interesting to see who is picked as permanent CEO . Elon, Martin , Marc, etc. run the risk, if this trend continues, of being pawns/figureheads in their own company one day-exactly like Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites is now. Personally I would stear clear of "organized private equity" and the associated "powers that be" -but in this country, if you have a company with great potential, this is hard to do-and apparently getting harder. It would have been much preferred if private equity people, as opposed to firms, would/could fork over the required cash-as in the likes of Brin & Page of Google, and Warren Buffet even, maybe. I suspect Tesla will continue down the establishment private equity road-and this (in my book) is without a doubt not good.

James Anderson Merritt

7:00pm | Aug 13, 2007

Wow. My browser didn't update this page from its August 9th content until I posted the above item about ZENN. Immediately, I saw the news about Martin! I read the Jalopnik item (thanks, Andrew K), and it sounds like a pretty good explanation of the move, but it makes me think that the delay in the Roadster might be longer than it is being painted. Otherwise, why formally replace the head guy without giving him a chance to gracefully step out of the way once "his baby" was born and he had at least a few moments to enjoy the winner's circle? There is plenty of time for a new sheriff to get things in line in time for White Star and Blue Star -- or maybe there isn't, if the delay in the Roadster were to be TOO long.

Bruce reminds us that Jobs was once 86'd by Apple. However, it is worth noting that this didn't happen until Apple had put out the Apple I, several Apple II models, the Apple III, the Lisa, and the first Macintoshes. To be fair, there was already considerable pressure to marginalize both Jobs and Wozniak circa the time of Apple III and Lisa. Putting Jobs in charge of the Macintosh "special project" was basically seen as a maneuver to keep him busy and out of the way, while the "big boys" courted the lucrative business market with first the Apple III and the Lisa. Also, the early Macintosh almost died. The Apple II continued to pay the rent for quite a while even after the 1986 introduction of the Mac Plus. That climate of uncertainty about a product line on which so much had been gambled made Jobs' ouster possible, perhaps even inevitable. But given that Tesla has yet to ship a product, the current news seems similar to hearing that Jobs had been booted from Apple before the first Apple I hit the streets. Or maybe the Apple II. Well, actually, perhaps Martin's situation isn't so different from Jobs' in the Apple II case. The Apple II went on sale in June of 1977, having been demonstrated a few months earlier as Apple's first "real" consumer-quality personal computer. "Outsider" Michael Scott had been named President/CEO the previous February. If Tesla follows Apple, we should then expect the first Roadsters to roll around December, for Martin to be squeezed out sometime around 2015 after the BlueStar is perceived as tanking, and for his messianic return in 2027, well after the wisdom of BlueStar has been redeemed in the marketplace. Of course, shortly after his return, Martin will introduce a very efficient internal combustion engine in the Tesla line (Tesla ICEs are simply better than the other guys' ICEs), and focus his energies on the introduction of a world-beating, much-ballyhooed redesign of something like the Segway. :-)

On second thought, perhaps we ought to keep the Apple analogies to ourselves.

Withan Lemmon

7:35pm | Aug 13, 2007

What is the dealer network so far?

Also, warrantee? Turning Diameter (curb-to-curb)? Weight distribution? Towing capacity? Full feature list? Like type of wipers? type of sun visors? Is there any form of stability control? (It will be required by 2012.) Brake assist?

T.J.

7:45pm | Aug 13, 2007

Regarding "private equity firms" they are mislabeled-they are really firms tied into the international bankers. There is a book on Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts called: "Merchants of debt: the mortgaging of American business" (1992) . KKR have been the kings of leveraged buyouts-meaning they put up a low percentage of their own money (as little as single digits percentage wise). That they can do this is no wonder-in effect KKR acts as a front for "other interests / friends in high places". Private "people" (the likes of Brin, Page, Branson, Buffet, Musk, Tesla Bloggers, etc.) are not behind "private equity" groups, private bankers/banking families are what's behind them. So even more of the economy goes into the control of a small , interconnected group of "interests"-and most people don't know it.

Nate

8:00pm | Aug 13, 2007

Few months ago Condi Rice stopped by, now... “organized private equity and the associated powers that be” as stated above are in control of Tesla. Sounds like the illuminati liked what they saw and took it before it took over their current economic structure. Course this wont get posted now will it...

Jeanette Weix: That $20k price tag for the battery pack is the projected replacement cost in a few years. Tesla has not stated what it costs now. This projection is based on the asumption that the costs will go down each year. This is probably true, but the battery technology is evolving rapidly and in a few years you will be confronted with a choise of replace with the same style for 20k or newer higher power version that could give 300 mile plus range. In fact if Tesla is only using newer higher performance batteries at that time, the cheaper option may not even be available.

Mark Tomlinson

8:39pm | Aug 13, 2007

I trust that Martin will post his letter to the owners in a blog shortly. Sounds to me like he just doesn't like being CEO anymore. If that's the case, can't blame him in the least, really. He's a technology guy, an electrical engineer, a geek like me. A geek, I suspect, like a whole lot of us. The CTO, or President of Technology, or whatever his new title is gets to play with cars and gadgets. The CEO gets to golf with lawyers.

Surya Kuppuswamy

10:48pm | Aug 13, 2007

Martin's gone... What's left? Would help if a Blog from Martin gets posted with details on his current and future plans

T.J.

12:14am | Aug 14, 2007

Nate- a few months ago Condi (minium) was in Liverpool and wanted to meet Paul McCartney-he said , quote: "No" (probably thinking to himself some choice halibuts deleted as well). That's our Paul-no "hyenas in the temple" for him. Tesla could have gotten funding totally from religiously principled tech. types / engineers-it may have been more difficult, but would have been well (well) worth the effort.

TEG2

12:25am | Aug 14, 2007

# Withan Lemmon wrote on August 13th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
## What is the dealer network so far?

Direct from Tesla only right now. Use their web site or give them a call.

## Weight distribution?

Approx 40% on the front, 60% on the rear.

## Towing capacity?

Almost certainly 0 because the chassis isn't designed for it.
That eMotor makes plenty of torque, but this is a pure sports car.

mark

4:11am | Aug 14, 2007

I've worked for a company that was owned and run by engineers. As a BSEE myself, when I asked about working on an MBA because I thought the company needed it, they asked me why I didn't want to complete additional post graduate work in Engineering. Many years later a younger engineer who still works there and went through an MBA program is now managing the former division manager. The problem that I saw was that everyone there wanted to build things and only one or two people were actually good managers. People in key roles who needed to be leaders weren't and in fact couldn't even manage well.

Companies go through growing pains if they are sucessful and it take different types of people to drive things properly. It is critical that everyone in a successful company know their role and what their strengths and weaknesses are. I've heard Martin and Elon speak and they are both passionate people, but neither of them carry themselves like a leader for the large company that Tesla hopes to grow into. The term geek keeps being tossed about. Unfortunately that is accurate to an extent.

My point is that everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. Elon Musk has a lot in common with Bill Gates. He quit school to pursue a business venture, and is absolutely hyper focused about his interests. Elon probably wouldn't get a clinical diagnosis as having Aspergers, but like Bill Gates he exibits many of the characteristics associated with this. This is a category that some of the best R&D people fall into. Unfortunately, the human brain appears to be limited in capacity and it is extremely rare to find an extremely intelligent and focused person who can also tune into the emotions of a room full of people and communicate tactfully with them. I worked for a company run by engineers and technology drove the business. This company did very well because it had the very best product in its market. However we had no real sales people, they were glorified order takers, and we didn't have any real leaders. After a long ride, the market faltered and the company disintegrated to a shadow of it's former status.

I think this is a very good sign that Tesla is maturing as a company. Having technical people driving the development phase makes sense, but now they are entering production and there is a whole new dynamic involved, and new responsibilities for the CEO of the company.

Flexible paper batteries could meet the energy demands of the next generation of gadgets, says a team of researchers. They have produced a sample slightly larger than a postage stamp that can release about 2.3 volts, enough to illuminate a small light. But the ambition is to produce reams of paper that could one day power a car.

Professor Robert Linhardt, of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, said the paper battery was a glimpse into the future of power storage. The team behind the versatile paper, which stores energy like a conventional battery, says it can also double as a capacitor capable of releasing sudden energy bursts for high-power applications.

While a conventional battery contains a number of separate components, the paper battery integrates all of the battery components in a single structure, making it more energy efficient.

The research appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

"Think of all the disadvantages of an old TV set with tubes," said Professor Linhardt, from the New York-based institute, who co-authored a report into the technology.

"The warm up time, power loss, component malfunction; you don't get those problems with integrated devices. When you transfer power from one component to another you lose energy. But you lose less energy in an integrated device."

The battery contains carbon nanotubes, each about one millionth of a centimetre thick, which act as an electrode. The nanotubes are embedded in a sheet of paper soaked in ionic liquid electrolytes, which conduct the electricity.

The flexible battery can function even if it is rolled up, folded or cut.

Although the power output is currently modest, Professor Linhardt said that increasing the output should be easy.

"If we stack 500 sheets together in a ream, that's 500 times the voltage. If we rip the paper in half we cut power by 50%. So we can control the power and voltage issue."

Because the battery consists mainly of paper and carbon, it could be used to power pacemakers within the body where conventional batteries pose a toxic threat.

"I wouldn't want the ionic liquid electrolytes in my body, but it works without them," said Professor Linhardt. "You can implant a piece of paper in the body and blood would serve as an electrolyte."

But Professor Daniel Sperling at University of California, Davis, an expert on alternative power sources for transport, is unconvinced.

"Batteries and capacitors are being steadily improved, but electricity storage is much more difficult and expensive than liquid fuels and probably will be so forever," he said.

"The world is not going to change as a result of this new invention any time soon."

Professor Linhardt admitted that the new battery is still some way from the commercial market.

"The devices we're making are only a few inches across. We would have to scale up to sheets of newspaper size to make it commercially viable," he said. But at that scale, the voltage could be large enough to power a car, he said.

However, carbon nanotubes are very expensive, and batteries large enough to power a car are unlikely to be cost effective.

"I'm a strong enthusiast of electric vehicles, but it is going to take time to bring the costs down," said Professor Sperling.

But Professor Linhardt said integrated devices, like the paper battery, were the direction the world was moving.

"They are ultimately easier to manufacture, more environmentally friendly and usable in a wide range of devices," he said.

The ambition is to produce the paper battery using a newspaper-type roller printer.

Malcolm Wilson

6:29am | Aug 14, 2007

# Ahmadi wrote
# A123 says it has shipped 10 million safe 26650 nLiFePO4 cells......
# Word in Taiwan is that nLiFePO4 18650 cells are 1/3 the price of LiCoO2 cells (18650 format) in volume.

What I hadn't fully appreciated is that the first Chevy Volt prototypes will be made using two different battery systems from two different sources. One will be based on A123's nanophosphates (which is looking like a good choice for normal hybrids), the other will use more traditional Li-ion cells (LiCoO2 ?) from CPI (Compact Power Inc) http://www.compactpower.com Like A123, these cells are manufactured abroad.

Strange that the apparent price benefit (or better recharge / discharge cycling) of the A123s hasn't won the first round. Could the use of 18650s in a liquid-cooled automotive battery pack infringe one of Tesla's patents?

James Anderson Merritt

7:12am | Aug 14, 2007

# Mark Tomlinson wrote on August 13th, 2007 at 8:39 pm

# The CEO gets to golf with lawyers.

Who the hell would ever sign up for that job? You'd have to like golf an AWFUL lot. :)

1) EVERY battery system needs coddilng to get the maximum lifecycle and stability, even the A123/Volt pack - especially if the projected 7000 cycle life is to be realized.
2) Calling ESS the "most coddled" - if this is taken literally to mean that it's the most protected and stabilized of packs, then it's more of a compliment.

3)The real issue I feel is the ratio of coddling technology to actual energy storage. If my math is right, the ESS is about 30% cooling/control/whatever, and 70% (600+ pounds) of actual batteries. As Mahmoud (sp?) pointed out at some point, the gross battery pack weight is somewhere around 120-130 wh/kg, even though the 18650's individually can achieve up to 200.

For those who argue in favor of the Lithium iron phosphate cell chemistry - which ranges on to cell level up to 140-150 wh/kg - the deciding factor is going to be how much control technology is needed in comparison to cobalt cells. It's irrelevant how less energy dense an individual LiFePo4 cell is if one can get a gross battery pack density greater than that of coddled cobalt. I can't really argue scientifically for one side or the other until I see the data for the Volt pack, or something similar.

Having said that, I think that even though some degree of cooling and control tech is critical to a proper EV, Tesla's complex ESS is ultimately a stopgap measure pending further battery technology improvement (regardless of what that improvement may be), and that the company needs to find other ingredients for its secret sauce in order to ensure long term success.

kert

10:19am | Aug 14, 2007

ICE in BlueStar/Whatever ... if you can do fast charge for few hundred miles, that would make ICE and refuelling redundant altogether. You simply have a 10-minute coffee/charge break every 200 miles, which would probably be totally acceptable for 99.9% of ( human ) drivers.
As A123 guys (the non-vaporware, mass-produced nanophosphate battery builders ) were saying in a recent interview, the cells for this are already there. It takes infrastructure installation ( charge stations with enough buffered storage capacity ) for this solution to get widely accepted.

Shantanu Pal

11:33am | Aug 14, 2007

A news article at Econimist.com on new battery technology: http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9642197 .
The technology and the concept itself sound very interesting - earth friendly, human friendy, possibly very light, flexible and ideally suited for high current draw applications like an electric car, apart from being a plain electricity storage (battery) device too.
Does this hold any promise for future automobiles like the Tesla White / Blue star?
Well may be not initially because of the prohibitive cost of new technology.
And then again, this is technology "in the lab", with nothing but a possibility that it will make it production in real life!

It says that they hve sold 10 ZENNs so far. Clearly not enough to keep the rent paid and the lights on. In a way, this validates Tesla's decision to shoot for the high-end. Ten Roadsters sold would indicate a significant level of business.

Ryan Lamansky / Kardax

1:12pm | Aug 14, 2007

Re: AES's $0.02

I agree that gross wh/kg is what ultimately matters for the Tesla Roadster. For future models, though, $-per-wh will become a big factor. A less-dense chemistry may win out if the price is right.

If you think about it the gasoline engine in a 'normal' car also has it's own cooling system and computer monitors to make sure no major malfunctions occur!! Those have had the luxury of years of evolution... The current consumer demands quality not ever available on the early gasoline engine powered vehicles. Many readers here have on idea of the quality problems of the autos from the 40's thru the 80's. There was a time when 80,000 miles on a car was unheard of.... you were on your second engine by then. It will be amazing to see 200,300,or even 400 thousand miles on the Tesla products because electric motors last so much longer than gas or diesel engines. I genuinely believe that batteries/electric motors will be cheaper thru mass production than gas or diesel engines because of the limited number of moving parts. This power source is proof positive of Teslas quality workmanship and dedication to their customers.

Thank you Tesla and more power (pun intended) to you.

Carolyn Eberhard

3:33pm | Aug 14, 2007

# Mark Tomlinson wrote on August 13th, 2007 at 8:39 pm

# The CEO gets to golf with lawyers.

I have never seen Martin golf, but I can imagine him souping up the golf cart.

Pete

5:55pm | Aug 14, 2007

I would be great to hear from Martin directly because after reading the blogs it looks like he was pushed out. I mean the timing is strange to say the least. It would be one thing if he was steping aside to let a full time replacement CEO go at it but to step aside for an interim CEO it really says we don't have the full story. I hope someone at tesla can provide it!

T.J.

7:00pm | Aug 14, 2007

Re. Mark comment-geeks can also be good CEOs . Gates being an example, until relatively recently. Another good example is Henry Ford, a geek in his day. Wikipedia says following on Ford: started working on steam engines for Westinghouse, became chief engineer for Edison Illuminating Co. Was an innovator who held 161 patents over his career. He started experimenting with gas engines in his spare time, and was a race car driver. His first car (1903) set a land speed record. At age 40 he got 11 investors to join him in starting Ford Motor Co. with $28,000. Later he also built the Ford Trimotor airplane. He became the "father of the assembly line and mass production". He reduced the standard workday from 9 hours to 8, and the work week from 6 days (or 7 even) to 5. He raised the minimum standard pay from $2.34 per hr. to $5.00 per hr. -wanting every worker to be able to buy a Model T. He was criticized by Wall St. for starting the 40 hr. work week and min. wage. Wikipedia says: "Ford shunned green and did not believe in accountants... he was a pacifist who opposed war, which he thought was a waste of time..." ( what a concept there-particualry for an industrialst, who stood to make major "green" off of some nice little / humongous wars)..." Ford became highly critical of those he felt financed war and seemed to do whatever he could to stop them". He started his own paper "The Dearborn Independent" for this end. So, in summary: nerdy, geeky Henry thrived even though he didn't believe in "money/ accounting / /financers & "the system" , had principles to give his workers a fair deal for the day, had principles re. the world scene - sham "wars for profit" and anyone associated with "this system". Yep-Henry would make a great Tesla geek CEO. He's proof that "being a weasel is strictly optional". Imagine what he'd be saying about the state of U.S. business / "finance" today. Tesla could find such a CEO, if they really want to look outside the box.

T.J.

7:22pm | Aug 14, 2007

P.S. on Ford from wikipedia and Ford Europe website: after visiting his grandfather's home in Ireland, he started a tractor plant in the city of Cork "He knew what he was able to do socially and economically in the U.S. and he figured that he could apply that model to the depressed area of Cork". The plant later also built Model T's and A's, exporting them as far away as Japan. By May 1930 the population of Cork was 80,000-of which 7000 were Ford employees. How many other industrialists of the day would even think of doing this?. Wikipedia: "though not formally educated, Ford had a global vision, with consumerism as the key to peace. He put a dealership in every North American city and in major cities on six continents".

Jeffrey

10:09pm | Aug 14, 2007

The announcement about Martin has come as a complete suprise to me. He was such a leader. I really hope this decision was Martins and whether "HE" thought it would be in the companys best interest to switch roles like this. Martin Eberhards honesty and strong desire to succeed has made Tesla Motors what it is today. I'm sure ALOT of people are really watching this company now that Martin has stepped down. The "customers" will decide on whether or not leaving Martin go was apporpriate. Martin YOUR still the man!

flabby

1:16am | Aug 15, 2007

##Pete wrote on August 14th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
##I would be great to hear from Martin directly because after reading the blogs it looks like he was pushed out. I mean the timing is strange to say the least. It would ##be one thing if he was steping aside to let a full time replacement CEO go at it but to step aside for an interim CEO it really says we don’t have the full story. I ##hope someone at tesla can provide it!

from the following paragraph from Martin (according to jalopnik.com/cars/electric-ceo-slide/tesla-motors-founder-martin-eberhard-out-as-ceo-electric-roadster-delayed-288674.php):

"This week I move from the CEO position to become President of Technology, and I remain on Tesla's board of directors. In my new job, I will focus on the final details of the Roadster and on advancing Tesla's leadership in our core technology. I will also be able to spend more time with you, our customers. My passion is for creating technology that brings about meaningful change, and for the people who embrace such technology. As we move towards production and contemplate the choices ahead of us, we at Tesla need leadership with that same kind of passion and talent for operations - passion that will secure Tesla's future as the next major automobile company."

And from the following sentence, also purportedly from Martin:

"I initiated an intense CEO search some time ago"

I find it hard to believe that Martin was, as you say Pete, "pushed out". The language to me clearly suggests that the move from CEO to President of Technology was Martins own decision.

Andrew Kelsey

2:37am | Aug 15, 2007

Could it be that Martin was just so busy resolving that final 5% on the Roadster that he wasn't doing justice to the CEO role in other areas? I could imagine he would find it hard to give the priority required to Whitestar while he is still 'fire-fighting' details on the existing car. In those circumstances investors, and Martin himself, might feel it would be better to hand over the creation of a new car company to somebody who can give that their full attention.

Brandon

5:51am | Aug 15, 2007

I would like to see a blog entry from Mr. Marks on what he envisions for TM during this transition. We all have a pretty good feel for how Martin operates, so an entry from Marks would assure us he is a team player who has adopted (if not already in place) the TM mindset.

Malcolm Wilson

6:29am | Aug 15, 2007

The problem for what we might call "Coddle-Tech" is that it depends crucially on thermal conductivities, expansivities and relative surface areas. Bigger cells do improve your overall pack energy density but for the same power delivery will experience larger internal temperature gradients and internal forces. Bigger cells will need more efficient (and therefore more expensive in cost / kg) thermal control.

Dale

8:58am | Aug 15, 2007

Tesla Roadster to make a 200-mile road trip from San Franciso to Lake Tahoe later this month.

Look at what the definition of CEO vs. a COO and CTO means today. I would argue that many "Geeks" have had the title CEO or president, but the title and actual responsibilities are often very different.

Bill Gates has always been about the technology. Steve Balmer was hired on as a business manager back in 1980 and for the most part acted the part of a CEO, while Bill handled what new technologies the company needed to pursue. When Bill officially took a role similar to CTO, it was because running the company wasn't what he liked to do.

Howard Hughs was about as far out there as you can get without being commited and he still managed to build a very successful company. Does that make him a good CEO? He delegated almost all of what a CEO would be in charge very early on while he pursued his obsessions. He made some big decisions and maintained ownership, but he didn't act like a CEO. He had very good people working for him.

Henry Ford also maintained ownership of Ford MO CO, but really had no business being a CEO. He fought hard against a number of very important developments that eventually proved critical to Ford's success. He was a great engineer and innovator, but he was not a businessman. He finally was forced by his son to change how business was run after Ford's sales were evaporating quickly.

As I said earlier I worked for a company run by engineers and we had the best product by a margin for a while so we prospered, but we were not remotely efficient, and didn't know how to grow out of a small company mentality and we didn't learn how to be more competitive when our technological lead started to diminish. We had dead weight, but people in management didn't want to make the tough decisions, so they didn't. We lost business we didn't need to turn away, and we didn't have a plan to take us into the future. There were competing technologies internally , lots of reinventing the wheel, and bad politics because of a lack of leadership and bad management. After the company was purchased twice, a hatchetman was installed as president and the company which at one point had a main campus with three buildings bought and paid for as well as offsite locations, now only takes up part of one building. They are hemoraging badly these days. There are very few talented people left over there.

Flabby, Martin posted in the other blog but still it seems strange. I don't doubt Martin initiated the search, the only surprise is that the board would take on some temp CEO over Martin with 5 years of experience and knowlege of all facets of the business. What is the time to get up to speed, to get even a fraction of the knowledge of Martin and then he is gone and they need to start over?!

As I said if it was not a temp assignment then nothing would smell fishy (pun intended) but as it stands it seems like the board pushed him out. So my new question is if it was only up to Martin what would he do?

Roy

6:07pm | Aug 15, 2007

I have searched the PNAS web site http://www.pnas.org/ for the article quote above about paper batteires, and cannot find it

James Anderson Merritt wrote on August 14th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
The actual scientific paper describing the battery discussed in the Economist article cited above, is here: www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/96/25/14199.pdf

This article is about nanotubes, in general but does not mention batteries.

hi wrote on August 15th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Can you take a look at paper batteries? news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=2280

None of the ariticles I read mention energy density or efficiency. Can anyone provide a link to the article in PNAS?

Ahmadi

11:21pm | Aug 15, 2007

@Malcolm Wilson - the mention by GM that they are looking into liquid cooling may be related only to the Korean CPI contract composed of the LiMn2O4 chemistry cells. These cells are pretty similar to LiCoO2. So it is entirely possible that GM's A123 contract does not contain a liquid cooling component.

An 18650 LiCo cell has an internal impedance of 90 mOhm. Compare that to a 26650 LiFePo cell (which is roughly the same energy capacity) of only 10 mOhm. Therefore, the A123 cell will produce 9 times less heat than the Tesla battery cell. Furthermore, lower specific density would mean that the A123 cells have a larger surface area to dissipate the heat. I would therefore guess that liquid cooling is not necessary for the A123 26650 or the A123 32157 cell.

Furethermore, A123 offers a "high power" 32113 cell that probably has 1/3 the internal impedance of the 26650 (per unit capacity). These cells can be placed in parallel with the 32157, and utilized during sudden bursts of acceleration or hill climbing further reducing the heat dissipationby the battery pack.

mark

7:52am | Aug 16, 2007

Pete wrote on August 15th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
" don’t doubt Martin initiated the search, the only surprise is that the board would take on some temp CEO over Martin with 5 years of experience and knowlege of all facets of the business. What is the time to get up to speed, to get even a fraction of the knowledge of Martin and then he is gone and they need to start over?!"

The key is that Martin will continue to do almost everything that he did before, and if anything this will help him to focus on doing what he does best.

A good CEO doesn't need to know everything that Martin knows.

All facets of the business to date involved R&D, fund raising and getting talent. Notice that most of the funding to date has come from other like minded people and not your typical VC's. Also most of the hiring has involved bringing in top flight engineers.

Now the facets of the company are going to change fast. They are preparing to become a comodity, and will be hiring lots of non-engineers, and dealing with lots of day to day buisness issues that have nothing to do with design new exciting cars.

1. Building a factory for the Whitestare
2. Setting up dealerships with complete centralized control
3. Dealing with customers and the products in the field
4. Customer relations
5. Managing a much larger number of employees.

It is a lot more fun for an engineer to design new things than it is to deal with all the other details.

It amazes me that people don't understand how changes like this are critical to the success of a company. You need different people driving the company as it enters different phases.

Li-nanophosphate can get over 7000 recharge/discharge cycles in it’s life
They've ditched the idea of ultra-fast charging (ie fill the cars battery in 10 minutes). Although their cells can, the electric grid infrastructure couldn’t handle it.
Swapping out batteries is not realistic due to the complicated electronics, packaging, and safety issues.
Thermal behaviour is better than ordinary Li-ion, but thermal management still a must, especially since GM wants bigger volume cells than the ones they make for power tools.

No evidence one way or the other as to whether their good cycle numbers are maintained irrespective of cell volume. I hope so, it's the only thing they've got left. Maybe this is why GM are still running a two-horse prototyping race between A123 and CPI?

Comments about V2G are a very long way off. Particularly considering the small energy capacity (16kWh???) of the Volt's power pack.

# I have searched the PNAS web site www.pnas.org/ for the article quote above
# about paper batteires, and cannot find it

## James Anderson Merritt wrote on August 14th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
# # The actual scientific paper describing the battery discussed in the Economist article
# # cited above, is here: www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/96/25/14199.pdf

# This article is about nanotubes, in general but does not mention batteries.

Thanks for pointing out that I had inadvertently posted the wrong link. The bad news is that you have to be a subscriber to PNAS to read the full article. Here is the link to the (free) abstract. You can use it to get to a page that will allow you to purchase the article if you wish. Sorry about the mixup.

Personally, I think that A123s look like a great choice for conventional hybrids, and that GM are hoping that they can be adapted for the E-Flex architecture without too much engineering grief, (and so that they can avoid looking like they are simply lagging along behind, copying what Tesla do.)

If you reduce the density of your coolant by roughly 1000 times, you have to reduce the coolant inlet temperature and / or increase the coolant flow rate to compensate. or you let the Volt's electric generator cut in early to boost power for top accelerations and top speeds, thereby reducing your demand on the battery, but increasing fuel consumption.

But then the Volt only has to achieve 35 mpg by 2020. Not exactly a challenge.

Controlling the movement of, and heat transfer to high velocity air through ducting is a much tougher challenge than controlling the same for lower velocity liquid flowing through tubing. Liquid cooling offers a more compact pack design for the same heat energy extraction rate.

If they can get air cooling to work with A123s on time and on budget, without incurring significant life-time stresses on the cells, that would be a great step forward. But equally, even if they get that working, successful air cooling of the Volt's 16 kWh (40 mile range) pack doesn't imply that this air-con solution will scale up for Tesla's (or anyone else's) larger pack designs - even if they also used A123s.

I think that's what's called "a graceful exit" from the corner in which one has painted oneself.

# Swapping out batteries is not realistic due to the complicated electronics, packaging, and safety issues.

Maybe today, but unless and until long-life batteries are installed in EVs from the start, a "deposit/return" model still strikes me as the most viable way to get "Quick" (or "quicker") charge. Power systems would, of course, need to be designed to support battery swapping, and we don't see evidence of that in current or near-future EV designs.

This is just "deposit/return" at another level. ;-) It's clear that the auto companies see value in this model for long-term maintenance and vehicle refurbishment. If battery improvements plateau near their current level for very long, the companies may see value in using a similar model to provide for "charge replenishment."

# Hang on, you rent the battery AND pay for gas?

Why not? Rental/leasing makes sense for something that will still be around after its USEFULNESS is depleted (or no longer relevant). Purchase makes sense for things that are themselves completely consumed (or, conversely, so durable that their lifetimes are long and maintenance costs are minimal).

Tim Marx

8:39am | Aug 17, 2007

Hi everybody!

My name is Tim Marx and I will soon go to college.
I am very interested in electric vehicles and consider it a very promising
technology for the future.
However, there is one question to which I could not find an answer on
the internet
and so I thought that someone here might be able
to explain this to me:

Even though, I understand torque and power curves of internal
combustion engines as well as electric motors the difference between
the peak and continuous power of electric motors remains unclear to
me.
If peak power output, for example, was only availabe for a short
period of time would that mean that one cannot really go top speed (full throttle) or
fully accelerate for longer than a few seconds.
If that is the case it would mean a major drawback of electric
vehicles as I currently live in Germany where there is no speed limit
on most Interstates (Autobahn) :-)

I would really appreciate if anyone could solve this problem for me and
reply to this post.

Thank you very much in advance.

TEG2

11:07am | Aug 17, 2007

# Tim Marx wrote on August 17th, 2007 at 8:39 am
## If peak power output, for example, was only available for a short
## period of time would that mean that one cannot really go top speed (full throttle) or
## fully accelerate for longer than a few seconds.

Basically the batteries can only deliver so much current without being damaged.
I think you can overtax them for short periods, but then they need a rest.
Also, the air cooled eMotor can be prone to overheat if you don't manage power flow carefully.

So, like most electric performance vehicles, it performs like a rocket off the line, but you have to restrict the "top end" somewhat.
Many small 250hp vehicles can go much more than 135MPH top speed.
I suspect that the 135MPH limit for the Roadster is based (at least in part) on limitations of the batteries and eMotor.
I suspect that the full 250hp is not available for sustained periods, so the gearing, and power characteristics are carefully designed to offer optimal 0-60 and 1/4 mile acceleration and keep the top speed at a point where you don't overstress the batteries and eMotor.

I had already come to the conclusion that the Roadster is the best tool for carving up twisty mountain roads, but isn't necessarily the best as a high speed autobahn cruiser.

Another factor to consider - the batteries only hold the equivalent energy of about 2 gallons of gas.
Going 150MPH+ on the autobahn encounters tremendous wind resistance resulting in very poor efficiency and reduced range.
With a 18 gallon gasoline tank you cover some decent distance (and burn a hole in your wallet), but with an electric vehicle you would find that your fun doesn't last very long at those speeds.

So, in summary, I think Tesla was correct to offer a "modest" top speed, and tout the low end performance. The vehicle is USA only right now, and our speed limits are typically no more than 65 or 70MPH, so it already has more than enough top speed capability for a street car.

TEG2

9:05pm | Aug 17, 2007

I think the characteristic of batteries that is critical when we talk about top speed and/or max HP is "internal resistance".
It is what turns the batteries into little heaters if you try to draw current from them too fast. Also the electrodes can oxidize from internally heating them too much which results in increased resistance, so old abused batteries may still be able to hold a charge, but they aren't able to deliver the same current that they could when they were fresh.

I think Tesla is always searching the battery industry for batteries with lower internal resistance as they are the best for high current applications like powering a performance car.

Ahmadi

10:28pm | Aug 17, 2007

# Which brings us back to the question of why, if A123 is apparently such a clear winner for engineering the Volt’s automotive battery pack, are GM bothering with the CPI prototype?

Its called - competition - so to keep them honest and in order to disribute the risk.

# If you reduce the density of your coolant by roughly 1000 times, you have to reduce the coolant inlet temperature and / or increase the coolant flow rate to compensate.

Welcome, Tim Marks
How long an electric motor or internal combustion engine can run at peak power before overheating depends on two factors:

1) Efficiency. Motors and engines lose some energy in the form of heat, The more efficient they are, the less energy is lost as heat. Electric motors have a huge advantage here, as efficiency is typically over 90%, while IC engines run about 15% to 30% (diesels at the higher end). That means for the same power, electric motors have much less heat to get rid of.

2) How good the cooling system is. Improved cooling can increase the time an engine can run at peak power. That's why most IC engines use a circulating liquid cooling system - it works better at moving heat.

The Tesla motor is high efficiency and can use a simple air cooling system, yet still can maintain peak power for extended lengths of time. The Tesla battery pack uses a liquid cooling system, as the batteries are much more sensitive to heat.

Top speed of the Tesla Roadster is 130 mph (217 kph), limited by the speed of the high RPM motor and two speed transmission. Someone once did some rough calculations that, due to increased wind resistance at that speed, the range would be reduced to about 90 miles (145 Km) The roadster could go that distance at full speed, the motor cooling (and battery cooling!) is sufficient. They went on to figure that, with an additional high speed gear, the Roadster could theoretically reach 160 mph (257 kph), but the range would be extremely short!

Brent

11:18pm | Aug 18, 2007

#TEG2 wrote:

#I think Tesla is always searching the battery industry for batteries with lower internal resistance as they are the best for high current applications like powering a performance car.

I think, too, there's a hope that with enough buying power Tesla will be able to specify a battery chemistry attuned to automotive applications rather than consumer electronics.

Malcolm Wilson

4:04am | Aug 19, 2007

# Ahmadi wrote
# Its called - competition - so to keep them honest and in order to disribute the risk.

i'm not complaining. If GM have the money to take two different technologies all the way to the prototype stage, that's fine by me. I was simply pointing out that in order to justify this to shareholders, either there is no clear winner on paper, or GM are hoping to use the CPI prototype to "prove" that Tesla's way of doing things is bad. But this will only work if the A123s can offer some clear benefit.

# If you reduce the density of your coolant by roughly 1000 times, you have to reduce the coolant inlet temperature and / or increase the coolant flow rate to compensate.
# Read the post again - A123 nLiFePO4 generates 1/9 to 1/30 amount of heat compared to standard issue LiCoO2 batteries.

Okay, so even at best, 1/30 x 1000 still means that a possible air cooling system in the A123 Volt needs at least a factor of 30 to equal the performance of a possible liquid cooling system in the CPI Volt. That's still a significant shortfall. IF the batteries are likely to be situated in a channel down the middle of the car's passenger compartment, I don't think it's sensible to allow them to just dissipate their heat. With the pack in this position, battery thermal control is as much to do with passenger comfort as it is with prolonging battery life.

Any heat which isn't extracted by the cooling system will have to go somewhere. The A123 cells may work fine at elevated temperatures, but without efficient directed cooling they'll simply add to the cabin temperature, thereby increasing the Air Con load. Then again, maybe passengers won't mind sitting next to a "hot box".

One solution to this would be to add layers of thermal insulation, preventing the greater allowed heat output from the A123s from entering the cabin. But this will leave even less room for any air cooling system which would have to deal with higher heat energy levels in a more confined space. Maybe heat can be conducted away through metal structures, to some sort of heat sink or radiator in the trunk or under the bonnet.

However, designing efficient solid, thermal conduction pathways is tricky. All to easy to introduce thermal bridges which allow the heat to go somewhere unintended.

Or why not just bite the bullet and use liquid cooling in the first place?

Just because it is possible to cook the A123s, doesn't necessarily make it practical to do so - much like ultra-fast charging.

Andrew Kelsey

4:07am | Aug 19, 2007

Suggestion for Tesla Marketing Dept. and TEG

Convert a London Black Cab or a New York Yellow Cab to use a full-size Roadster ESS and Roadster gearbox (maybe fixed in 2nd gear) and final drive. Then detune the car via the software so that the loaded cab (with passengers) will only do 0-60 in the standard time for that vehicle, or maybe just a little better. You really don’t want 0-60 in 6 seconds in a cab! Also adjust software so that top speed is limited to 75 mph. Run the car around a little, with passengers or weights, in urban use, with a little freeway driving thrown in, just to establish the likely mileage running as a taxicab. Then give or lend the cab to a regular cabbie who habitually covers a slightly lower mileage than this in his daily work. This would, much more quickly, enable you to establish a mileage limit for the batteries under fairly ideal conditions. Reduced acceleration and top speed should ‘coddle’ the oversize battery (for a cab) even more than it is already coddled and the lower mileage required should mean that the car need only be charged to say 80% or 90% most nights and then run down to say 10% or 20% in use so that the batteries will be further protected. If the project proves the concept works and the economics are there you might also find that LTI who produce the London Cabs would be interested in buying ESSs from TEG for their regular production lines, now in China, I believe, as well as the UK. Longevity for the batteries is the key to this technology taking off in the taxi world just as it is for regular prospective EV owners. The higher mileage covered by taxicabs should prove the ESS concept very quickly and also provides some interestingly favourable comparisons with IC taxis when it comes to fuel and servicing costs. Lower mileage Roadster users would take a long time to provide the same information and most will abuse the batteries more than a taxicab will.

CM

6:08pm | Aug 19, 2007

On Andrew Kelseys taxicab idea: Something similar was already attempted by Hybrid Technologies, they converted several Chrysler PT Cruisers into LiIon electric taxicabs and persuaded the NYC Taxi and Limo commission to test them in NYC. They failed the test, didn't hold up to hard driving taxi hacks, and didn't get the milage they were supposed to get. At least, that's what the NYC Taxi commissioners said.

New York is a poor choice for such a test, the NYC Taxi and Limo commission is tradition bound, has been reluctant to embrace change, and puts strict limits on which models will be allowed as taxis. Less than two years ago, they finally allowed the use of hybrids for taxis, long after they had already proven their worth in several other city taxi fleets. They still won't allow the Toyota Prius to be used, even though the Prius has been used successfuly as taxis elsewhere for many years. Vancouver British Columbia has had Prius hybrid taxis since 2001!

Rather than try and convert an existing car, which isn't well designed for electrical power, it would be much better to offer some of the "Whitestar" sedans for taxi use, once they are in production. Good test sites include San Francisco, Sacramento and San Jose in California; Honolulu, Hawaii; and maybe even Vancouver, British Columbia.

Andrew Kelsey

1:21am | Aug 20, 2007

##CM wrote on August 19th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
On Andrew Kelseys taxicab idea: Something similar was already attempted by Hybrid Technologies, they converted several Chrysler PT Cruisers into LiIon electric taxicabs

How big were those Hybrid Technologies Lithium batteries CM? I think the key is to use an oversize battery so that it isn't stressed in any way. Obviously cabs are much heavier than the Tesla but you don't need a lot of performance which should compensate. Just my two cents.... I'm no engineer!

Joe

1:30pm | Aug 20, 2007

Is Tesla Motors keeping an eye on carbon nanotube technology that can open the door to creating capacitance batteries?

The potential for a non-chemical reaction battery that can be charged over 100,000 times (perhaps having an ESS that can outlast the car itself), and that can be recharged in seconds versus hours, and that would weigh 75% less than the current 900 pound battery system, and that can have a range exceeding 1,000 miles versus 200 miles, is very tantalizing for electric cars.

I hope Tesla is looking at carbon nanotube technology as intently as I and perhaps many others are looking at electric cars - Tesla being the most stellar of them all.

Roy

4:50pm | Aug 20, 2007

Joe: These nanotube batteries sound too good to be true!! Could you please provide a web link so we can learn more?

James Anderson Merritt: Thanks for the PNAS link for paper-thin liitium-nanotube batteries. At http://www.pnas.org/cgi/data/0706508104/DC1/3 is a charge/discharge curve that does not look prommising. The charge voltage goes all the way to almost 4 volts and the discarge curve starts at 2 volts and drops rapidly like a capacitor r/c curve. Very unuseable and inefficient. Energy storage capacity is about half that of the lithium-ion batteries used by Tesla on a per weight basis. At this point I would have to say it would only find applications where thin and flexible was much more important than ability to store energy.

CM

6:01pm | Aug 20, 2007

Joe, the problem with Carbon Nanotube Capacitors is that currently they are theoretical - there isn't even a working lab model to test! Claims that they would be much ligher or have much greater storage capacity than LiIon are premature until actual working models are tested. Even if they are developed, it will be years or even decades before they are produced in sufficient quantities for automotive use. Also they may prove to be too expensive, unless the cost of carbon nanotubes drops dramatically.

Be assured that the engineers at Tesla Motors keep informed on all the latest developments in batteries and electronics that might be of use in future models.

James Anderson Merritt

7:07pm | Aug 20, 2007

As far as converting a taxicab into an EV using Tesla technology, I would recommend converting the Cash Cab.

Just as the host disguises himself to fool unsuspecting contestants, perhaps the Tesla Cash Cab would need to have a "motor sound" to keep people from choosing "the silent cab" in hopes of making big bux.

Brent wrote:
"I think, too, there’s a hope that with enough buying power Tesla will be able to specify a battery chemistry attuned to automotive applications rather than consumer electronics. "

600 cars, spares, and the TEG Think batteries puts the individual cell order around 6 million units. That's some buying power.
I believe I heard Martin say that the switch from a steel casing to an aluminum jacket can save a noticeable amount of weight in the ESS. Aluminum would probably be better for heat dissipation as well.

Joe

11:29am | Aug 21, 2007

Roy,
Here's a few websites you can look at that discuss carbon nanotubes being looked at to create a capacitor (among other applications), a capacitor simply being two metal plates seperated by a dielectric. Carbon nantubes could be applied to the plates to create a sponge, so to speak, that will give the capacitor signficantly greater storage potential. CM is right - carbon nanotube technology is still theoretical, but still really exciting and closer to reality than assumed. It's expensive to manufacture even a gram of suitable nanotubes, but consider what can be done if this country would embark on a Manhattan-lik Project to discover a way to mass-produce capacitance batteries that could power electric cars!

Joe: Thanks for the links. I have read the older ones from MIT before, but not the newer ones. They suggested that the energy density would be comparable to NiMH batteries, still significantly less than Li-ion used by Tesla. These are still at least 5 years from commercial reality. None suggest as you stated that they could have 5 times the energy density of Tesla's ESS, or that they would be cheap. Tesla is very keen on ultracapacitors and believe that this technology could one day be the best choice, so yes they are definetly watching this progress, but they must focus on what is pratical to-day not what might be available in 5 to 10 years. EEStor has made incredible claims for their barium titanate ceramic ultracapacitors which they say will be on the market early next year. Although these will be ligher weight than Li-ion, they are larger so more space will have to be allocated for them. The real bonus is that they claim these will be cheaper than lead-acid. We will see.

Malcolm Wilson

4:17pm | Aug 23, 2007

Having re-read the Tesla Blog entry - "A Bit About Batteries" over in the "think" channel - the following article makes more sense:-

So if the entire pack can hold a maximum of 16 kWh, the Volt's 40 mile electric-only range comes from discharging between 12.8 kWh (80%) and 8 kWh (50%). Which means they need to get over 8 miles per kWh on batteries alone!

So that either means driving quite slowly, or far lower drag and friction numbers than the EV1.

I think this article may be corrected in the next few months.

Malcolm Wilson

11:44am | Aug 24, 2007

Ah, I get it.

The Volt's 12.8 kWh (80%) to 16 kWh (100%) top-up can only be achieved when you plug the car into a wall socket. So the 40 mile battery-only range is only available for the first 40 miles driven after disconnecting the recharge cable. The generator is only allowed to recharge the batteries enough to give 24 mile battery-only sections in a longer journey.

Phoenix was expected to be the first company featuring AltairNano's "NanoSafe" batteries. The exotic technology, limited production, and astonishingly high price of those batteries may be a factor, as problems with government approval, financing, and manufacturing are described as reasons for the delay.

One effect of this delay is that the Tesla Roadster is the only 4-wheel U.S. highway-capable EV still scheduled to begin production this year.

leankha

7:54pm | Aug 24, 2007

if the battery has it's own climate control system; might not the car?
it sucks to get into an ice cold seat and breathe frozen air in winter and is worse to climb into an oven during a hot summer day and scald your hands on a broiled steering wheel.

I work across from U of Florida and am continually telling everyone about your car. Tesla = Hope.

thank you & congrats!

Morgan M

3:20am | Aug 26, 2007

You have a great achievement in getting your battery certified. Congrats!!!

About nanotubes. There is at least one company that is developing space elevator and several that are considering it. Space elevator needs to be build using carbon nanotubes. A LOT of carbon nanotubes. No, more than that. A lot. That forces them to develop means to build them in vast amounts, which basically means mass production factories. When they learn how to do suitable nanotubes at that scale they will learn to do all kinds of things with it as a byproduct, including better batteries for sure. Consider that a Yet Another Space Technology used in everyday life.

Space elevator might be reality in next 25 years. Much better batteries much sooner. In next five to ten years will show us extremely quick development in energy storaging and transportation. Bluestar might easily outrun Roadster for range and still have that very low price tag.

Combustion engines are living their last days now. Even without Tesla. But we do need pioneers to do things and Tesla is greatest I have seen.

Leankha wrote: hot car and or cold seats. One feature I read about that Reva had developed for their electric car was a remote conrol to prestart your air conditioner or heater prior to entering your vehicle. Another nice thing about EV's is that on shorter drives where you do not have to be concerned about running your batteries down you can leave your air conditioner or heater running with the car unattended unlike your ICE.

Brent

10:58am | Aug 27, 2007

#Morgan M wrote on August 26th, 2007 at 3:20 am

#I wonder what you think of Altairnano’s nano titanate cells. Will we see those in your future cars?

Those batteries would probably raise the price of the car to over $200,000. I wouldn't think TM would consider them until the price drops substantially.

As to the comparisons with the Volt and their (likely) A123 batteries. The 40 mile all grid derived power range is advertised to be between 80% ("full charge" out of the socket) and 30%. That gives an efficiency of 2.24km/MJ while driving off of grid derived power which compares favorably to Tesla's 2.18km/MJ. Most daily drives will be within that range. Keeping the range to a reasonable level that still covers the vast majority of daily commutes allows them to get by with that 16kWh battery. If Andrew's post is accurate and Tesla's more than 3x larger battery pack will cost Tesla less than $20K, then GM is likely to get these batteries, mass produced by A123's sub in China, CBAK, for substantially less than $6K.

Tesla has to realize that this is the competition to beat and that GM is chomping at the bit to be the first out of the box. The bulk of America (and I count myself here) won't spend more than $30K and for that they want one car with the full functionality that they are used to. Room for five and the ability to drive cross country on occassion if the situation demands, even if the situation rarely does. Pure BEV isn't there yet despite Tesla's amazing progress. Even if rapid recharge stations were widely available, they'd be left either with consumers having to stop every few hours to recharge for ten minutes or with many more batteries than needed most of the time adding much extra weight and cost. A small ICE generator adds that functionality to an otherwise medium range BEV economically.

I applaud Tesla's consideration of joining the PHEV race. PHEV is a necessary step to full BEV acceptance and will significantly displace petroleum use and significantly decrease carbon emissions. My Honda Civic hybrid (sort of room for five) is five years old. In three years my High Schooler will get it for college (sophmore year) and I'll be in the market. I hope to be able to choose between one of these vehicles!

MARK

11:39am | Aug 31, 2007

WITH THE NEW BATTERYPACK FINALISED, YOU SHOULD START SELLING THESE TO THE GOVERNMENT.
i CAN SEE MILITARY USES AND POSSIBLY USE IN CLEAN ENVIRONMENTS SUCH AS NUCLEAR FACILITIES,
NASA BUILDINGS. ETC. PLACES WHERE LARGER GAS POWERED FORKLIFTS AND MACHINES CANT'S BE USED
BECAUSE OF EMISSIONS. AND SAFETY REQUIREMENTS.

charlie

10:15am | Sep 2, 2007

Tech Guys

A little sleepy math for a serial hybrid mode with the numbers the best from memory

Your home charger is about 70A at 220V or about 15 Kw for 3.5 hrs to fully charge
A 25 Kw could charge 54 KWh pack at a bit over 2 hrs and probably still not stress the max charging current

The ESS seems to be able to provide about 185 KWatts for acceleration and if you removed 200 lbs to make room for the 25 KWatt RotoPac and 10 gallons of fuel (less than 3 cu ft and 200 lbs using the same cooling as the ESS w/not emission controls needed) that would drop the max ESS energy from 185 KWatts to 185*7/9 or about 145 Kwatts and range would drop as well from 220 miles to 220*7/9 to 155 miles or so. But wait if the power module was programmed to allow it to be on when desired for acceleration and regen braking actually also spun the module to speed when slowing, then you actually have access to an additional 25 Kwatts or 145+25 = 170 Kwatts for acceleration, within 90% of the original. You also have 25 Kwatts for charging while driving which is actually excessive since 54 Kwatts hr ESS at 220 miles range is about 15-16 Kwatts of continuous energy needed. In addition the RotoPac can act as emergency generator for the home and would really NEVER be needed if one wanted to live with a range of 155 miles and the acceleration power of about 250 HP*7/9 or about 195 HP.

According to an article on Autoblog Green, Toyota is making plans with the French electrical utility EDF to develop recharging stations for several European nations. Looks like the Toyota plan for plug-in hybrids is still on track, perhaps starting in Japan and Europe first.http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/09/02/breaking-toyota-to-announce-plug...
Tesla Motors should also hold talks with both of them to set standards for connections and power. Having a single charging connection standard usable worldwide (or failing that, universal adapters) would be immensely beneficial to Tesla, Toyota, and the electrical utilities.

The installation cost should also be kept low, as low cost enables more charging outlets in more parking lots, improving the ease and convenience of recharging for EV and PHEV customers.

Ekuwa Amegor

8:13am | Sep 4, 2007

Have you heard about the Nano lithium-ion battery? They say they have stripped the graphite and replace it with nano technology so that they are able to charge the battery within 10 min, without overheating it. I wonder if you guys could incorporate that into your battery. Then there truly would be no need to buy a gasoline powered vehicle.

2) If above goal can't be achieved we need to put more batteries or do something such that in one full charge vehicle can go almost 600miles. That's an average a person would drive in a day while on go.

3) Price of the car needs to come down in the range where people can afford, maybe ~$30K or lower.

Although pure EV is the way to go, I like the idea of a rotary generator for long distance trip vehicles. You could run the engine on an alternate fuel like CNG, propane, or even hydrogen.
(I converted a Mazda rotary to run on propane, and Mazda has a hydrogen rotary test vehicle).

i live in ireland will their be an outlet in the uk as 2 uk companies are producing commercial vehicles with similar range at lower speeds of course. some prominent companies in the uk have ordered fleets of them.one of them has up to 7.5 ton capacity and anothr one is higher i think. if electric vehicles are mass produced the day of the oil based motor company is over it will become 21st century steam engines

I was really only concerned with not giving up acceleration (less batteries means less instantaneous current) and size/weight so I used moller as an example.
They seem to be funding their other projects with the concerns you mention with rotary motor work. (funding a nutty idea with a good technology)
I couldn't care less if moller did it or williams or anyone.

What could be easy is for Tesla to spec the needs and have moller or others design it. (low cost way to cover a bet in my opinion since pure EV acceptance is still unknown)
If nothing else perform a due diligence on mollers rotary engine technology and see if anything pans out since I doubt you are going to get much help from GM.

If the vehicle could be charged while driving or put out power when home, they could spec a 20-25 Kw system in a small size at a small weight with a life of 10 years or 500 hrs or so. The motor/generator could also work with the regen braking and share the ESS cooling. The moller needs no catalytic converter so it could probably be self contained. This is not the same as a car motor since its ON time is so much less over the life of the vehicle and only needs to operate at one RPM setting. Before the series hybrid approach is abandoned, there is always the what if scenario? What if Tesla could get a self contained 25 kw generator in the size needed, cost needed, weight needed, reliability needed, simplicity needed?

I think if my choice were pure EV with 220 mile range for 30K or serial hybrid with 150 mile pure EV range and unlimited using gas/ethanol for 32K, I would pick option 2. I actually do forget to charge my cell phone sometimes and the power does go out, and lots of people do not have garages but do have jobs (may be able to charge at work but not home, and my apologies to those w/o garages or jobs, you might have to wait for a new car) and even if fast charging is solved, there is still no infrastructure. If it were modular with the ESS I would even pay to have Tesla to put it in/out for me for the few times a year I need it since I never have to go to the dealer for service anyway.

TEG2

6:48pm | Sep 5, 2007

# charlie wrote on September 5th, 2007 at 11:05 am
## I was really only concerned with not giving up acceleration (less batteries means less instantaneous current) and size/weight...

If you have a combustion power source to charge the batteries you can use different batteries that store less energy but can output it faster.

...Meanwhile, Fuel Cells continue to improve... Pure EV companies tend to mock them, but if you can't get all the range you need from batteries alone, it may be worth revisiting them someday...

Don

10:26pm | Sep 5, 2007

Blue Star competition?

Miles Automotive Group is planning release of a $30K EV family sedan: http://robots.cnnfn.com/2007/08/13/autos/electric_car/index.htm
"If all goes according to plan, by 2009 you could be sticking it to Big Oil by driving an all electric, Chinese-made sedan for little more than the cost of a Camry.... the XS 500 has a top speed of 80 miles per hour and a range of 120 miles at 60 miles per hour. .... Both the low cost and the high range can be attributed to China, where low labor costs keep the price down and state-sponsored research into battery technology yielded what Rubin said was an advanced lithium ion power pack produced by Lishen Battery." The car is actually built by Tianjin-Qingyuan Electric Vehicle in China, and, I suspect, is probably based on a car that will also be sold broadly to the Chinese market with a different chassis and brand identification.

Obviously details are sketchy. What kind of tax credit will it revieve? How big is its battery pack and how deep of a discharge do they plan on to get that range? How many cycles will it get and for how many years? Acceleration? Devil's in dem details.

Still. They will initially be releasing in the same American markets as Tesla and benefiting from Tesla's having made EVs sexy and cool, even though they have gone from NEV upstream. If they bring a car to market in 2009 it will have an effect on Tesla ... either way. A rousing success with a great car beats Tesla to the mass market punch and steals the thunder. A dismal failure poisons the well for EV for the masses (that means folks like me). Meanwhile better diesel is coming out that give mpg and carbon emission reductions comparable to hybrids and PHEVs are not very far away.

These next few years are going to get interesting. The game may be well afoot before Tesla gets its "downstream" ball even close to being in play.

Timo

10:19am | Sep 8, 2007

# Don wrote on September 5th, 2007 at 10:26 pm

## Blue Star competition?

## Miles Automotive Group is planning release of a $30K EV family sedan:
## robots.cnnfn.com/2007/08/13/autos/electric_car/index.htm

(120mile range top speed 80miles/hour)

I have strong belief that battery technology will been advanced so much by 2009 that you could get 200 mile range with low cost. Not necessarily 30k$ but in range of 40-60k$. No competition for Tesla _as long as Tesla is available in Europe_ . It seems that Miles Automotive is planning to sell mainly in China. Tesla is for Western market, but if Tesla is not available in Europe europeans will turn to other manufacturers, Miles Automotive included.

I think it is mistake to plan only for America. US is only 5% of world population. Tiny market in global scheme, especially when biggest development in the world is in China. Billion people needing cars. Tesla needs to go global eventually.

Anyway competition will be good news for EV:s in general even that it might hurt Tesla a bit. More choices, faster tech development, cheaper prices and the big one: cleaner air.

adrian

7:10pm | Sep 8, 2007

I was wondering why they just used lithium ion batteries instead of lithium ion polymer batteries. From what I have read they can store more power, are more efficient and since they use a polymer instead of a liquid they do not run the risk of exploding: which is one of the dangers of having so many lithium ion batteries packed so closely together and why they have such a sophisticated monitoring system for the batteries. Anyway I love what they are doing and I think that the Lotus body is perfect for a starting point. Great work.

---

Editor's note: The Tesla Roadster is not exactly based on a Lotus body. See our Lotus Position blog for more information.

Sorry about posting this in the blog, but I couldn't find anywhere else. Are you using the original or the mutli-user version of WordPress?

Don

6:52pm | Sep 14, 2007

Malcolm,

You still seem to be confused about what the plan is with the Volt. Bottom line is that you get 40 miles on grid derived power after unplugging, and that after that the ICE keeps the batteries maintained at about a 30% charged state. Unless you live way far from an interstate that'll get you there, a good distance along there, and home again, just fine on grid-derived power alone. That'll handle most Americans daily commutes and the ICE recharging the battery will allow for distance traveling as well.

Timo,

Where do you get the impression that Miles is "planning to sell mainly in China"? They are planning to sell a Chinese manufactured highway capable electric family sedan mainly in the same markets that Tesla has targeted and has prepped. It is entirely possible that the Chinese manufacturer will also sell the same (or almost the same) car to the Chinese market.

As to what battery technology will win ... it's an open question. Tesla argues that its "coddled" approach allows the best possible balance between energy density and power density. They have created a 53kWh system weighing 900 pounds. That does have more energy density that A123's system - a 16kWh system allegedly weighing in at 350 pounds. Tesla's approach would save almost 80 pounds (if all of the electronic controls were scalable down as well) for a 16kWh system. The advertised Altair version for the same 16 kWh would be about 650 pounds! And weight matters. OTOH that weight comes at the cost of complexity, and some additional safety risk despite all their system redundancies. And the same A123 battery would provide a significantly greater power density ... to get the same power the Tesla style system would have to weigh more. Meanwhile ABAT (Advanced Battery Technology) has a Lithium polymer (PLI) unit that they claim "weighs approximately 500 pounds, and is designed for commuter vehicles. It permits a top speed of 120 mph, and a traveling distance of 240 miles per charge. The battery discharges 5% of its energy per hour, when not in use, so daily recharging is necessary. The battery can be recharged in 3 to 4 hours. " according to their most recent 10KSB/A and is exploring using Altair's materials in novel ways. I do not know it's exact kWh. They've sold that PLI in volume for $3333 per, according to that same document.

Very likely it will come down to cost and capacity. Altair cannot possibly rev up to volume production (unless they sub out to ABAT which one suspects is in the cards); ABAT doesn't have the American alliances although they may get a significant Chinese market share (again unless they manufacture for Altair ... Zap will not be a player). It does seem like the ABAT PLI made with Altair nanomaterials is the best bet for pure BEV though. I have a hard time believing that Tesla will get their approach to be cost effective for a more downstream market. Lishen supplies the batteries to the Chinese car company that makes the vehicles for the Miles Group but I have no details on them. Lishen makes both Li-ion (and subs for Valance) and Lithium polymer batteries. A123 has the alliances and the in-place Chinese sub (publicly traded CBAK) along with a product that delivers great power density and good enough energy density for PHEV use. And PHEVs will very likely sell better at first. JCI-Saft is trying to become a major US market player and it is their battery in the to be released Saturn two-mode PHEV VUE.

Probably several approaches will co-exist but Tesla's approach seems restricted to high-end cars only. Their historic role will be to have displaced the EV = golf cart meme with the EV = hot and sexy one, and we will all owe them for that. But getting their battery approach cheaper isn't likely to happen. (meanwhile I'm long CBAK -mostly, and less so ALTI, and ABAT, as well as JCI ... I think that they will all do well!)

Malcolm Wilson

4:21am | Sep 15, 2007

Hi Don

I was just a little irritated by the wording in the article, which seemed to adapt Bob Lutz's comment to suggest that the car would manage a decent stretch of Interstate on batteries alone. Of course it always runs on electric power, since only the electric motor connects to the transmission, but I should have used the phrase "battery only" ration rather than "electric only" ration in my original post.

The 40 mile battery only range is likely to be achieved at 50 rather than 70 mph. Urban cycle driving from home and back should see better gas mileage figures. Long range driving won't be bad either, if they run the ICE continually at the most efficient rev setting. This could be too noisy in slow moving traffic, however.

If the generator keeps cutting in and out to maintain battery charge around the 30% mark (rather than actually recharge it), presumably regen does the same? I.e. regen works with the generator to maintain charge as well.

Since higher Power Density is a key benefit of A123s, I'm assuming that once the 40 mile range is exhausted, the battery is still used to deliver higher accelerations than can be achieved by the 53 kW generator? Or maybe that will generate too much heat?

Don

10:03pm | Sep 17, 2007

I would tend to think that regen works like any other regen - always capturing what it can. The idea is to use the ICE generator as little as reasonably possible. The battery ALWAYS delivers the accelerations, higher, lower and in between. As you obviously know, the Volt is not a Prius type parallel system. The battery and electric motor always run the car; the ICE just provides the battery with extra charge when it starts to dip below 30% charge.

I do not know at what speed the 40 mile battery only range is calculated at. But neither do I suspect that there is a huge difference between 50 mph and 70 mph. My WAG would be that the estimate is for "average driving conditions."

But this is a Tesla board, and Volt comments really should be relevant to Tesla's alternative. In the first pass Tesla is aiming at a select market segment. Their battery solution delivers the power and range that are critical for success in that segment. What a car! Cost of the batteries is less of an issue when you are still delivering a product superior in most ways to other competing sportscars and for less cost. The question is how to aim at a more mass market segment, where battery cost becomes a very significant issue. Can Tesla compete in that arena with their current battery model? Can they succeed as a company if they do not? Can they get a reasonable product out before they lose best opportunity?

Once again Tesla made a tactical decision to go high end first and that has benefited the image of EV for all. Others (Miles, GM, etc.) will passively benefit from their effort. The greater good, which is well served by the transition to EVs, will benefit from their effort. Bravo. Really. But for Tesla to benefit they've got to move to get an affordable mass market vehicle that has the needed functionality out there faster than they seem to be currently planning. IMHO. Me? I want choices. The more options at that under $30K mark for BEV and PHEV the better. The sooner the better too. I want Tesla and GM and Miles and Phoenix and even that vaporware entity ZAP to all be successful and selling cars in my local dealerships. And I want China to mostly bypass the ICE car culture and go directly to an EV world. That's how the world can benefit from successful EVs the fastest and most.

Dave Baragona

9:29am | Sep 21, 2007

I have read that GM and other car makers are working on plug-in hybrids or EV's. Most of these car copanies claim that these developement of these cars is dependent on battery technology that does not yet exist.

It seems to me that Tesla has shown that the battery technology DOES exist.

Question: Is Tesla negotiating with any of these car makers to license the ESS techology that they have designed?

Darren Webb

1:22pm | Sep 21, 2007

Has Tesla Motors ever considered Solar Power to give the battery/car a bit more leg on long hauls?

Delivery may slip to 2011.
Max sustainable speed is 100 mph, but 120 mph can be achieved "for a limited time". Intriguing. This suggests that you can sacrifice your 40 mile battery-only range in favour of blasting along briefly at 120. Sustaining 100 mph must presumably be when the on board gas-powered generator just supplies the electric motor alone.

This implies that for the highest accelerations, you need the batteries, but a decent charge from these is only available for the first 40 miles max (at 50 mph?). Accelerate hard and this available range will drop. Once the batteries are exhausted, any spare ICE generator output and/or any regen only maintains the battery charge at 30%. Neither is allowed to recharge the battery. Recharging is only possible from a wall socket.

So the Volt is an EV for the first 40 miles (approx) and then becomes just another gas car (with extra electric trimmings) until you plug it in again.

Presumably GM will trumpet mileage figures which rely on a good percentage of battery-only motoring. And once people get hold of this car and discover that the more you rely on batteries alone - then the better the mileage, they will press for more public electric recharge facilities to keep down the Volt's gas consumption.

More people will do the math and make the connection between non-fuel motoring and more efficient energy use (lower running costs). Plus less maintenance.

Dave Baragona

2:28pm | Sep 21, 2007

I continue to read that plug-in hybrid electric vehicles like the Volt are dependent on developing battery technology.

Are there plans for Tesla to license this battery technology to the automakers like GM?

BCORIG

4:41pm | Sep 22, 2007

Its all in the batteries. If you can put this engine and battery pack in my M35 and increase the range to 350 miles, I will put my money down right now.
My question is, it looks like you have solved the battery issues regarding size and weight, why not just sell it to the Big 6 and be done with it?

Excuse my butting in, but in reading an article in a Brazilian magazine on tecnological marvels, your wonderful vehicle showed up. In one of the pictures accompanying the article it shows the base (chassi?) of the car and there is a comment which says"...the base of the car is of aluminium, soldered with epoxi, aeronautical technology which reduces weight...." This subject interests me because it might just be the line of thinking I need to use for my pewter products. How could I find out more on this subject?? Could you send me any help that you would be willing to impart to my e-mail??

Just wondering if you've looked at the graphite foam batteries by fireflyenergy, I realize they are saying they are a few years out from producing batteries for EV, but wonder what your take on this would be for future cars (whitestar and blue star)

Rafael

9:14am | Jun 13, 2008

Will the Tesla battery have sustained battery life? My laptop and my mobile phone both use lithium ion batteries and over the course of its life the battery gradually decreases in its ability to hold a charge until I am no longer able to use the batteries. Would it be any different with the car? In other words if the first charge can give me a range of over 200 miles what would the range be after the 1000th charge?
Lastly,
Is there any possibility that there would be a Tesla TV channel on youtube or even on this site? I am very intrigued by the company and the innovations that are on the cutting edge of the most necessary of markets. I would welcome any visuals, as I am sure many other fans of electric cars would be.

Cost isn't that much of a concern for the roadster but as Tesla moves down market and endeavors to repurpose the ESS in other applications cost will be a large factor. What are Tesla's plans to drive down the ESS cost? Do you think battery costs will follow a typical marginal cost curve (i.e. costs will fall as volume increases) or will underlying technology advances drive battery cost down?

jerry a. witt

9:38am | Apr 2, 2009

I have an idea more than a comment on how to make the batteries last longer I`m sure you might get all kinds of quacks I may even be one of them. But this just seems appropriate since this idea was clarified while watching a documentary on Tesla. This idea has been burning away in my head since I first recieved it, actually most of the people I talk to about it just look at me funny. But, in my head I can`t make it not work, I see possible set backs but total faith that if the information which helped me come up with it are correct.

siprasoeut

11:45pm | Mai 23, 2009

Will the Tesla battery have sustained battery life? My laptop and my mobile phone both use lithium ion batteries and over the course of its life the battery gradually decreases in its ability to hold a charge until I am no longer able to use the batteries. Would it be any different with the car? In other words if the first charge can give me a range of over 200 miles what would the range be after the 1000th charge?
Lastly

53kWh of electricity stored? so does that mean that if you were to purchase solar panels to charge your tesla, you would need an 8kW solar power system to fully charge your tesla in one day?

Bob Plugh

10:12am | Mär 12, 2010

To charge a 53 Kwh battery via solar cells would take much larger than 8 Kw of solar cells, and that is heavily dependent on you location relative tot he equator. You should figure on NO MORE than 4 hours of peak sun per day, and, what do you do if it's very cloudy out - just not drive? In any case, I would hazard a guess that somewhere around double your number (say 15 Kw) would be the minimum to charge the car in one day.

hi , im from morovis puerto rico , im handycap but , i take the original idea to make the beter charge funtion sistem,. But , my poor economy solvents dont permissme make this proyect . if something interes ion a exelents ideaa to electric auto cahrgin sistem ,take my a call on facebook or msn hotmail messeges, my name is hector luis albaladejo marrero, my english is a little fluid but im hope you undestand. see you later and thaks for you atteption.

anand.jain

11:01am | Okt 28, 2011

Hi, i'm from Jaipur, India
and quiet a fan of Tesla
i have a query like "SIPRASOEUT" posted on MAY 24, 2009 (6:48AM)
every battery has its life and needs replacement.
Here in India we have "Mahindra Revai" as the only full electric car. It needs battery replacement around 3-4 years and that costs to about 25% of cost of the car and is thus costlier in the long run.
So, my questions is that Tesla's ESS costs that much at the time of replacement or they last longer than ususal Li-ion batteries?
Thanks